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BR    162    .M47 

Merivale,  Charles,  1808- 

1893. 
Four  lectures  on  some  epochs 

of  earlv  Church  historv 


FOUE   LECTURES 


ox    SOME    EPOCHS    OF 


EAELY    CHURCH    HISTOEY 


DELIVERED   AY  ELY  CATHEDRAL 


BY 

CHARLES     MERIVALE,     D.D. 

DEAN   OF   ELY 


NEW  YORK 
ANSON   U.  F.  RANDOLPH   A    COMPANY 

90U    BROADWAY,   COR.   20th   ST. 


PEEPACE, 


The  special  object  of  these  Lectures  is  sufficiently 
indicated  in  the  Introduction  to  the  first  of  them. 
I  should  not  think  it  necessary  to  prefix  any  other 
notice  to  them,  but  that  I  feel  it  right  to  mention 
that  in  preparing  the  first  and  second  I  have  put 
myself  under  some  obligation  to  the  ingenious  essays 
of  M.  Bungener  and  M.  Pressense,  published  some 
years  ago  in  a  volume  entitled  '  Seances  Historiques 
a  Greneve,'  and  in  the  third  I  have  allowed  myself 
to  insert,  with  slight  alterations,  two  or  three  para- 
graphs from  a  little  work  of  my  own  on  the  '  General 
History  of  Rome.'  The  fall  of  Rome  and  the  build- 
ing of  the  Christian  Church  are  so  closely  con- 
nected, that  I  found  myself  travelling  for  most  part 
of  my  way  on  lines  very  nearly  parallel  with  those 
with  which  I  had  been  before  familiar. 

The  delivery  of  these  Lectures,  which  were  com- 
posed with  a  view  to  a  limited  number  of  young 


vi  Preface. 

students,  was  actually  attended,  much  beyond  my 
expectation,  by  friends  and  neighbours  of  various 
ages,  both  male  and  female,  and  no  doubt  with  a 
various  amount  of  preparation  for  deriving  instruc- 
tion from  them.  I  may  say  that  I  was  much  grati- 
fied at  finding  that  they  possessed  some  interest  for 
a  wider  circle  of  hearers  than  I  could  have  antici- 
pated ;  but  I  am  led,  from  many  circumstances,  to 
believe  that  the  light  which  ecclesiastical  and  secular 
history  mutually  throw  upon  each  other  is  becoming 
more  and  more  keenly  appreciated  among  us — 

Facies  non  una  duabus, 

Nee  diversa  tamen,  qualem  decet  esse  sororum. 

I  plead  this  excuse  for  the  publication  of  a  little 
volume  which  makes  no  pretension  to  special  re- 
search or  originality  of  view. 


■  Of 
PEUTeETOF 
■fi£C.  FEB  1882 


CONTENTS, 


LECTURE   I. 

PAGE 

St.   Ambeose,    and    the    Union    of   the    Christian 

Church  with  the  State         ,        ....        1 


LECTURE   II. 

St.   Augustine  :   some  Lessons  from  his  Life  and 

Teaching 53 


LECTURE   III. 

St.  Leo  the  Great,  and  the  Rise  of  the  Papacy   .    lOG 

LECTURE   ly. 

St.    Gregory,    and    the     Early    Missions    of    the 

Church 160 


'''<^^-i:^r^T:^;Il'>i 


EAELY    CHUECH    HISTORY. 


LECTUKE  I. 

ST.    AMBROSE    AND    THE    UNION    OF    THE    CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH   WITH   THE   STATE. 

My  Lord  Bishop, — You  have  expressed  a  wish  that 
some  readings  should  from  time  to  time  be  given 
in  this  place  on  subjects  connected  with  theology, 
and  especially  with  ecclesiastical  history,  at  which 
the  clergy  in  our  neighbourhood  and  such  of  the  laity 
as  have  some  leisure  to  spare,  and  more  particularly 
our  Divinity  students,  together,  possibly,  with  the 
upper  classes  of  our  grammar-scholars,  should  be 
invited  to  attend.  Your  Lordship  has  honoured  me 
with  a  request  that  I  should  commence  the  series, 
which  I  willingly  obey.  Our  limits  will  hardly  allow 
me  to  make  the  preface  which  might  be  expected 
at  the  outset  of  my  undertaking.  I  must  content 
myself  with  saying  that  I  shall  address  my  remarks 

B 


S^.  Ambrose. 


principally  to  our  students  and  learners,  and  ask  the 
indulgence  of  others  among  my  audience,  to  some  of 
whom  I  shall  doubtless  only  repeat  over  again  events 
and  ideas  with  which  they  have  been  long  familiar, 
while  it  is  just  possible  that  there  may  be  a  few  who 
will  be  hardly  sufficiently  advanced  in  scholarship  to 
follow  my  remarks  with  critical  intelligence. 

I  am  to  give  you  some  account  to-day  of  the 
political  establishment  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
of  its  union  with  the  secular  Empire  of  Kome  in  the 
middle  of  the  fomlh  century,  taking  the  illustrious 
Ambrose  Bishop  of  Milan  as  the  central  figure  of 
the  epoch.  With  an  ample  subject  before  me  and 
limited  space,  I  must  ask  you  to  excuse  me  if  I 
review  the  antecedent  period  very  briefly  and  intro- 
duce you  to  my  subject  with  the  least  possible  delay. 

When  the  Emperor  Constantino  adopted  the 
Grospel  for  his  own  personal  belief,  the  faith  of  Jesus 
Christ  did  not  thereupon  become  in  any  sense  the 
religion  of  the  Empire.  By  the  Edict  of  Milan,  in 
the  year  313,  Christianity  first  became  legally  tole- 
rated. Before  that  period  it  had  stood  merely  in  the 
condition  of  the  few  creeds  which,  among  the  many 
which  found  favour  in  various  provinces,  had  never 
received   the   sanction   of    the   general   law.      The 


S^.  Ambrose. 


decrees,  indeed,  which  had  been  directly  levelled 
against  it  had  been  partial  and  occasional  only,  and 
such  hostile  enactments  mi^ht  be  suspended  or  with- 
held for  long  periods  together.  A  great  part  of  the 
third  century  afforded  at  least  a  breathing-time, 
during  which  the  Faith  enjoyed  a  certain  security, 
sufficient  to  favour  its  extension,  but  at  the  same 
time  to  deprave  in  some  degree  its  principles.  The 
terrible  persecutions  of  Decius  and  Diocletian  braced 
again  its  moral  fibre,  and  we  can  hardly  doubt  that 
the  high  tone  which  these  trials  engendered  among 
the  believers  helped  to  engage  the  attention,  the 
interest,  and  finally  the  conviction  of  the  first 
Imperial  convert. 

But  Constantine  was  aware  that  the  Christians 
were  but  a  fraction  of  the  whole  mass  of  his  people  ; 
that  it  was  not  to  such  partial  support  that  the 
government  of  the  world  he  had  made  his  own 
could  be  at  once  shifted  ;  that  as  a  ruler  of  many 
nations  he  must  temporize  with  all ;  and  so  deeply 
was  he  impressed  with  the  political  exigencies  of  the 
crisis  that  he  allowed  himself  to  keep  his  personal 
faith  in  suspense  almost  to  his  last  moments.  He 
accepted  the  homage  of  the  Christian  bishops  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  the  Pagan  priesthood  on  the 


n  2 


Sf.  A  77t  brose. 


other,  permitting  himself  to  act  as  the  Head  of  the 
Church  upon  earth,  even  while  he  assumed  with  the 
title  of  Sovereign  Pontiff  the  chief  control  of  the 
Pagan  idolatries. 

Constantine,  then,  did  not  confer  on  Christianity 
the  political  position  of  a  state  Eeligion.  Even  had 
he  nominally  done  so  it  would  not  have  altered  the 
fact  that  the  Emperor  and  the  State  were  still,  and 
long  continued  to  be,  essentially  Pagan.  We  may 
readily  suppose  that  the  Emperor's  personal  example, 
with  the  favour  he  plainly  showed  to  the  new  religion, 
which  indeed  he  virtually  accepted  long  before  he 
submitted  to  the  rite  of  baptism,  induced  a  crowd  of 
officers  and  courtiers  to  conform  to  it,  though  others, 
ruder  and  more  independent,  may  have  been  all  the 
more  repelled  from  it  thereby.  There  were  still 
Komans  of  the  old  stamp  among  the  ruling  classes 
of  the  falling  Empire  not  less  stubborn  in  their 
religious  than  in  their  political  principles.  We  may 
imagine  that  in  some  eyes  the  Gospel  lost  much  of 
its  spiritual  attraction  when  it  appeared  so  suddenly 
prosperous,  while  the  ancient  creeds  became  endeared 
to  their  latest  votaries  by  falling  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Imperial  displeasure,  and  by  the  first  mut- 
terings  of  the  impending  storm  of  disestablishment. 


St  Ambrose.  5 


But  the  Pagans  were  not  in  fact  easily  persuaded 
that  their  ancient  religious  institutions  were  menaced 
with  any  serious  danger.  They  had  seen  many  new 
forms  of  faith  rise  and  fall  beside  them  in  the  course 
of  ages.  Judaism  had  at  one  time  invaded  the 
highest  ranks  of  Koman  society,  and  secured  itself 
a  legal  recognition  through  the  countenance  of 
august  personages.  Other  forms  of  Syrian  worship 
had  followed  in  the  train  of  Judaism,  and  had 
emptied,  while  they  were  in  fashion,  the  temples  of 
the  old  Italian  divinities.  The  throne  itself  had 
been  occupied  by  a  dynasty  from  the  East,  which  had 
leagued  itself  with  the  sensuous  fanaticism  of  the 
worship  of  the  sun.  Throughout  the  third  century 
the  cult  of  Mithras  had  been  perhaps  more  popular 
even  at  Eome  than  the  cult  of  Jupiter.  The 
cult  of  Magna  Mater  had  been  introduced  from 
Phrygia,  of  Isis  and  Anubis  from  Egypt,  of  the 
Dea  Caslestis  from  Carthage,  and  had  been  admitted 
to  a  legal  status  in  the  city ;  but  all  in  turn  had 
forfeited  their  attractions,  while  the  gods  of  Latium 
still  clung  to  their  ancient  seats  with  obstinate 
tenacity.  Again  and  again  these  venerable  powers 
had  seemed  to  recover  their  influence,  when 
the  Grovernment,   under   stress   of  manifold   perils, 


S^.  Ambrose. 


sought  to  revive  the  fortunes  of  the  Empire  by 
recourse  to  primitive  traditions.  So  it  was  that 
when  the  Christian  Faith,  the  faith,  as  it  seemed  to 
the  world  at  large  of  a  mere  sect  of  Jewish  fanatics, 
became  suddenly  flattered  by  the  favour  of  the  Caesar, 
the  court,  and  the  army,  the  multitude  at  first  looked 
on  with  wonder  and  curiosity,  and  presently  with 
deep  mortification,  but  still  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  full  significance  of  the  spiritual  revolution  before 
them.  They  still  clung  to  the  assurance  that  as  it 
had  been  before,  so  would  it  be  again ;  the  new 
religion  would  soon  be  unmasked  and  discredited  ; 
the  superstition  of  the  Jew  and  the  Syrian  would  be 
but  a  nine-days'  wonder  ;  the  gods  of  Eome,  who  had 
so  long  maintained  the  glories  of  the  Empire,  would 
surely  in  due  time  regain  their  ascendancy.  The 
Pagan  faction,  secure  of  its  ultimate  success,  made 
no  attempt  to  thwart  its  ruler's  caprice,  and  was 
content  simply  to  ignore  the  facts  before  it.  It  con- 
tinued to  perform  all  the  rites  of  the  ancient  faith  ; 
perhaps,  as  falling  creeds  are  wont  to  do,  even  to 
enhance  their  prominence  and  significance.  It  still 
sanctified  all  public  acts  with  the  old  Pagan  usages; 
still  hailed  its  sovereign  as  the  supreme  minister 
of  its  religion,  and  attributed  his  acts  and  caprices 


6y.  Amh^ose. 


to  celestial  impulses ;  still  prescribed  the  old  vows 
to  the  old  divinities,  in  the  name  of  Caesar  and  the 
Senate  ;  still,  in  short,  kept  up  the  specific  forms  of 
Pagan  worship  even  to  the  deification  of  the  Emperor 
deceased  and  the  invocation  of  his  divine  spirit 
while  still  living.  On  the  other  hand,  it  abstained 
studiously  from  any  allusion  to  the  place  which 
Christianity  now  actually  held  in  public  life.  It 
made  an  effort,  a  laborious  effort,  to  pass  over  the 
phenomenon  in  total  silence.  Throughout  the  few 
remains  of  popular  literature  of  the  age  of  Con- 
stantine  we  can  trace,  it  seems,  no  single  i  reference 
to  the  existence  of  the  Christian  Church  or  Creed. 
Even  at  the  end  of  the  century  the  poet  Claudian, 
in  versifying,  as  is  his  wont,  all  the  chief  events  of 
contemporary  history,  has  not  one  word  to  say  of 
the  new  religion,  which  in  his  day  had  effected  a 
complete  revolution  both  in  Church  and  State. 

Both  the  Caesar  and  his  subjects  had  now,  indeed, 
equally  agreed  to  shut  their  eyes  to  the  gulf  which 
actually  separated  their  ideas  and  sentiments.  Con- 
stantine  withdrew  tacitly  from  Kome,  as  if  conscious 
of  the  religious  difficulty.  Some  say  that  he  was 
driven  from  his  Pagan  capital  by  remorse  at  the 
murder  of  his    son   there;    some  were   content   to 


8  S^.  Ambrose. 


ascribe  the  foundation  of  Constantinople  to  views  of 
secular  policy ;  others,  again,  supposed  that  he  was 
piqued  at  the  affronts  put  upon  him  by  the  populace 
when,  after  holding  the  Council  at  Nicaea,  he  was 
assailed  with  outcries  and  menaces  in  the  streets  of 
Rome.  So  it  was,  however,  that  with  no  cause  as- 
signed, no  deliberate  policy  declared,  he  abandoned 
the  centre  of  the  ancient  Paganism,  at  which  neither 
he  nor  his  successors  ever  again  resided,  leaving  the 
imperial  city  to  retain  for  another  century  the  first 
place  in  the  Pagan  world,  while  he  enthroned  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  the  New  Rome  on  the  Bosporus. 
So  it  was  that  each  rival  power,  each  hostile  princi- 
ple, agreed  serenely  to  ignore  the  most  patent  acts 
of  the  other.    ' 

The  Caesars  who  followed  in  the  next  generation, 
when  they  found  it  politic  to  make  a  sojourn  in  the 
West,  generally  took  up  their  residence  at  Milan, 
but  never  at  Rome.  It  was  from  Milan  that  they 
could  most  promptly  direct  the  military  operations 
required  by  the  dangers  which  thickened  on  the 
Rhine  and  Danube.  The  political  importance  of  the 
capital  of  northern  Italy  had  thus  become  second 
only  to  that  of  Rome,  while  the  remembrance  of  the 
edicts  which  had  issued  from  it  might  encircle  the 


6V.  Ambrose. 


throne  it  offered  to  the  Caesar  with  peculiar  venera- 
tion. Milan  became  now  the  Christian  while  Rome 
continued  to  be  the  Pagan  capital  of  the  West. 
Each  religion,  it  might  perhaps  be  thought,  would 
remain  content  with  its  own  share  of  the  Empire. 
But  hence  it  was  that  the  Church,  in  the  secondary 
position  it  must  occupy  in  its  adversary's  stronghold, 
could  play  for  another  century  only  a  secondary  part 
in  the  general  career  of  the  faith  triumphant.  The 
absence  of  the  sovereign  from  the  ancient  metropolis, 
which  was  destined  to  play  so  great  a  part  in  the  end 
for  the  advancement  of  the  Roman  See  or  Papacy, 
operated  at  first  to  retard  the  progress  of  the  Church 
at  Rome,  and  to  cripple  the  energies  of  its  hierarchy. 
It  might  have  seemed  at  the  time  as  though  the 
political  future  of  the  Christian  Church  pointed  in 
some  other  direction ;  the  Bishop  of  Rome  might 
seem  for  a  time  to  be  lost  in  the  midst  of  a  city 
which  the  Imperial  policy  had  now  definitively  aban- 
doned to  Paganism.  Elsewhere,  both  east  and  west, 
the  new  faith  might  march  forward  gloriously ;  but 
at  Rome  at  least — at  Rome,  which  had  become  a 
present  deity,  a  supernatural  energy,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Pagans — she  must  still  give  place  to  the  Genius 
Loci,  the  genius  of  twelve  illustrious  centuries. 


TO  S^.  Ambrose. 


On  considering  the  attitude  thus  assumed  by  the 
rival  persuasions  at  this  period  we  naturally  ask  our- 
selves, What  was  their  relative  force  numerically  ? 
Upon  this  point  various  guesses  have  been  hazarded, 
but  no  enquirer  can  speak  with  any  precision.  The 
data  to  which  alone  we  can  refer  are  both  uncertain 
and  conflicting.  The  early  Christian  writers  seem  to 
speak  according  to  the  object  of  the  moment ;  some- 
times they  are  prone  to  represent  their  brethren  as 
already  overflowing  the  Empire,  even  in  the  second 
or  third  century  ;  sometimes  as  a  feeble  minority,  as 
a  little  flock  of  sheep  straying  in  the  wilderness, — 
according  as  they  wish  to  alarm  their  opponents  with 
physical  or  overawe  them  with  moral  force.  All, 
perhaps,  that  we  can  safely  assume  is,  that  the  Chris- 
tians, though  still  in  a  decided  minority,  were  more 
numerous  in  the  East  than  in  the  West,  where  they 
certainly  formed  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  whole 
population.  In  Gaul,  in  Spain,  in  Britain,  even  in 
Italy  and  Kome  itself,  the  mass  of  the  people  were 
far  less  advanced  intellectually  than  in  Greece  or 
Asia,  and  far  less  susceptible  of  the  spiritual  culture 
implied  by  a  disposition  to  accept  the  pure  truths  of 
the  Gospel.  But  it  is  most  worthy  of  remark  that 
it  was  from  the  West  notwithstanding  that  the  im- 


J5V.  Ambrose.  \  i 


pulse  was  given  to  the  general  conversion  of  the 
Empire  which  ultimately  followed.  Constantine  was 
bred  in  the  West,  while  his  father  Constantius  had 
commanded  as  Caesar  in  Graul.  Constantius  himself 
had  been  noted  as  a  favourer  of  the  brethren,  and  had 
refused  to  join  in  persecuting  them.  We  must  fur- 
ther bear  in  mind  that,  besides  the  genuine  adherents 
either  of  the  Christian  or  the  Pagan  creed,  there 
were  doubtless  a  large  number,  possibly  the  bulk  of 
the  whole  population,  who  cannot  be  regarded  in 
strictness  as  attached  either  to  the  one  or  the  other. 
But  the  Christians,  a  small,  an  oppressed,  but  a 
growing  body,  were  all  devoted  heart  and  soul  to  the 
creed  which  had  enlisted  them  ;  while  Paganism  was 
a  mere  negative  title  which  might  be  applied  to 
every  one  who  was  simply  not  a  Christian.  The 
honest  votaries  of  the  old  classical  mythology  of 
Grreece  and  Rome  were  no  doubt  comparatively  few ; 
the  worshippers  of  the  Celtic  and  Teutonic  divinities 
may  have  been  fewer  still ;  those  of  Mithras  and  of 
other  Oriental  deities  were  probably  more  numerous 
than  either  of  these  classes  ;  while  the  so-called  Phi- 
losophers, a  large  but  fluctuating  body,  positively 
rejected  any  religious  creed  at  all.  But,  besides  all 
these,  there  still  remained  a  vast  mass  of  the   un- 


12  ^S"^.  Ambrose. 


attached  and  irreclaimable,  who  were  sunk  in  mere 
carelessness    and   indifference.      Accordingly,  it   is 
possible  that  a  really  small  number  of  genuine  Chris- 
tians could  balance  any  one  of  the  Pagan  denomina- 
tions, and  even  be  compared  with  little  disadvantage 
with  the  actual  devotees  of  the  whole  of  them  together. 
But  it  was  after  all  in  their  moral  force  that  the 
real  superiority  of  the  Christians  lay.     There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  active  and  growing  strength  of 
the  Koman  world  was  truly  theirs — theirs  was  the 
future  of  all  civilised  society.     They  were   the  men 
who  had  risen  in  numbers  and  influence  in  spite  of 
three  centuries  of   persecution,   perhaps   in   conse- 
quence of  them.     They  had   borne  hardness;  they 
had  drawn  strength  and  vigour  from  the  storms  in 
which  they  had  been   nurtured.     How  much  then 
might  now    be  expected  of  them,  now  when  they 
were  floating  upon  the  wave  of   success,  conscious 
of  the  power  within  them,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  felt  a  divine  assurance  of  the  promise  of  final 
triumph  ?     They  could  speak  with  confidence  in  the 
face  of  adversaries  who  were  more  and  more  visibly 
cowed  with  the  sense  of  decline  and  discomfiture. 
Still   more,   the  Christians  were   the  men   of    the 
highest  moral  character;  honest,  industrious,  self- 


S^.  Ambrose.  i2i 


denying,  good  husbands,  good  parents,  men  who  had 
made  many  sacrifices,  and  could  make  many  more, 
men  who  might  be  trusted.  In  the  eyes  of  far-seeing 
and  thinking  men  their  triumph  was  already  assured, 
and  Constantine,  a  man  of  great  common  sense  com- 
bined in  a  singular  measure  with  an  ardent  imagi- 
nation, might  easily  persuade  himself  that,  however 
few  in  number,  the  Christians  were  the  stuff  of  which 
empires  are  constituted.  This  was  the  sign  of  victory 
in  which  he  trusted ;  not  the  feigned  or  fancied  cross 
in  the  heavens,  which  makes  so  pretty  a  legend  in 
ecclesiastical  history. 

We  may  suppose,  indeed,  that  the  favour  thus 
unexpectedly  showered  on  the  new  faith  by  the  Im- 
perial government  would  tend  inevitably  to  reverse 
the  proportions  of  the  two  persuasions,  or  rather  of 
the  two  parties,  which  now  divided  the  Eoman  world. 
Powerful  as  the  example  of  rulers  has  always  been  in 
such  matters,  it  would  never  perhaps  be  more  so  than 
at  the  moment  when  Paganism,  corrupt  and  effete, 
had  lost  all  the  spirit  of  a  real  faith,  and  when,  as 
we  shall  see,  Christianity  was  only  too  ready  to  accept 
overtures  to  the  easy  compromise  which  its  rivals 
soon  began  to  offer  it.  Nevertheless,  the  progress  of 
the  Church  of  Christ  was  really  slower  and  less  com- 


14  St  Amdj^ose. 


plete  than  might  have  been  expected.  Some  allow- 
ance, as  we  have  seen,  must  be  made  for  the  spirit  of 
pique  and  the  wounded  pride  of  a  class  so  deeply 
prejudiced  on  all  matters  of  sentiment  as  the  mag- 
nates of  Eoman  society.  But  Paganism,  it  must  be 
added,  developed  at  her  last  gasp  a  new  principle  of 
vitality,  and  nerved  herself  for  a  desperate  conflict 
along  her  whole  line.  While  the  Emperors,  partly 
from  policy,  partly  from  their  personal  indifference, 
abstained  from  overt  measures  against  the  doomed 
superstitions,  she  still  flattered  herself  that  her  end 
was  not  come,  and  might  yet  be  averted.  Paganism 
had  not  fallen  at  the  first  blow,  she  had  not  fled  in 
confusion  on  the  first  turn  of  fortune.  The  Pagans 
dreamt  that  the  danger  was  passed,  or  postponed  at 
least  for  a  season.  The  pendulum  must  swing  back 
again.  They  still  cherished  in  their  hearts  a  con- 
viction that  the  existence  of  their  faith  was  indis- 
solubly  connected  with  that  of  the  Empire  itself; 
and  the  day  had  hardly  yet  arrived  when  the  turmoil 
of  Goths  and  Germans  on  the  frontier  could  alarm  them 
for  the  ultimate  safety  of  the  Empire.  Such  was  the 
sentiment  which  inspired  Julian  with  the  preposte- 
rous idea  of  reviving  the  worship  of  the  gods  of 
mythology  ;  but  Julian,  if  he  succeeded  at  all  even 


kSV.  Ambrose.  15 


with  the  Pagan  vulgar,  was  never  anything  but  a 
laughing-stock  to  the  more  intelligent  even  among 
the  nominal  Pagans  themselves.  Julian,  however, 
was  cut  off  in  the  year  363,  and  the  feeble  reaction 
which  he  had  set  in  motion  in  the  course  of  his 
short  reign  was  at  once  reversed.  The  Emperors 
Valens  and  Valentinian  were  once  more  Christians, 
and  the  world  proceeded  to  conform  more  and  more 
widely  to  the  fashion  of  their  opinion.  Eome  almost 
alone  stood  sullenly  aloof.  Among  all  the  Bishops 
of  Rome  there  was  none,  nor  till  the  next  century  did 
any  arise,  with  ability  to  give  an  impulse  to  the  new 
faith  at  the  focus  of  unbelief,  or  disturb  the  influ- 
ence which  the  ancient  systems  still  enjoyed  in  the 
Senate  and  among  the  chief  rulers  of  the  capital. 
The  throne  of  the  Western  Csesars  was  now  planted 
definitively  at  Milan ;  and  now  it  is  that  the  illus- 
trious Ambrose,  of  whom  I  am  to  speak  more  particu- 
larly, comes  upon  the  stage. 

Ambrose  was  of  noble  Graulish  extraction,  born  at 
Lyons,  or  possibly  at  Treves,  in  the  year  340.  His 
Greek  name,  suggesting  the  meaning  of  '  immortal,' 
was  probably  given  him  by  Christian  relatives.  We 
must  not  suppose,  however,  that  he  was  baptized  in 
infancy.      The  baptism  of  Ambrose  is  recorded  at  a 


1 6  S^.  Ambrose. 


much  later  period  of  his  life.  His  father,  indeed,  seems 
to  have  been  a  Pagan,  but  to  have  died  while  the  child 
was  yet  of  tender  years ;  it  was  from  his  mother  and 
his  sister  that  he  received  his  early  Christian  train- 
ing. The  future  bishop  and  father  of  the  Church 
was  bred  for  a  civil  career.  He  gave  precocious 
evidence  of  talents  for  forensic  oratory ;  of  him, 
too,  the  old  story  is  repeated  that  a  swarm  of  bees 
once  rested  on  his  lips  in  his  infancy,  and  the 
happy  presage  was  duly  accepted.  Ambrose  prac- 
tised at  the  bar  at  Eome,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
five  was  noted  as  the  most  promising  of  advocates  at 
the  centre  of  all  civil  accomplishments.  He  was 
thence  advanced  to  the  post  of  governor  of  Liguria, 
in  the  north  of  Italy  ;  but  this  perhaps  did  not 
require  residence,  for  we  next  hear  of  him  as  estab- 
lished at  Milan.  '  You  are  more  fit  to  be  a  bishop 
than  a  governor,'  was  said  of  him  by  a  high  civil 
authority  at  the  time;  but  whether  ironically  we 
cannot  tell.  However  this  may  be,  the  words  carried 
their  fortune  with  them.  At  this  moment,  the  Arian 
bishop  Auxentius  died.  The  success  of  the  Arian 
party  in  the  West  had  already  culminated,  and 
was  just  beginning  to  decline.  Parties  were  almost 
equally  balanced,  and  the  choice  of  a  chief  pastor  of 


6V.  Ambrose,  jj 


the  Christian  flock  seemed  on  the  point  of  being 
decided  by  a  violent  and  perhaps  a  sanguinary 
struggle.  On  the  day  appointed,  the  multitude  of 
electors  met  in  the  principal  church  (even  at  that 
time,  even  at  Milan,  the  Clnistians  could  hardly 
have  been  a  majority  of  the  population),  and  the 
governor  hastened  there  to  prevent  the  expected 
collision.  While  he  is  addressing  the  people  and 
striving  to  calm  their  passions,  lo !  a  child's  voice  is 
heard  none  knew  whose  or  whence — neque  erat  cogno- 
scere  promptu'}n  unde,  sed  audita  est — exclaiming, 
'  Ambrose,  bishop ! '  The  crowd  took  up  the  cry,  and 
repeated  it  from  mouth  to  mouth ;  and  so  Ambrose 
became  Bishop  of  Milan  by  popular  acclamation. 

Some  critics  have  imagined  that  this  famous 
incident  was  prepared  beforehand,  but,  as  far  as  we 
can  judge,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  person  or 
party  especially  interested  in  it.  As  for  Ambrose 
himself,  the  story  goes  on  to  assure  us  that  he  was 
distressed  and  alarmed  at  the  unexpected  issue,  and 
even  went  so  far  as  to  pretend  to  some  gross  irregu- 
larities and  immoral  enormities,  in  order  to  scare  his 
admirers.  This,  indeed,  is  a  foolish  gloss,  such  as  might 
almost  suffice  to  discredit  the  incident  altogether. 
But  who  shall  say  that  so  strange  a  story  is  not,  after 

c 


i8  S^.  Ambrose. 


all,  a  mythical  invention,  in  explanation  of  an  elec- 
tion which  to  the  next  generation  seemed  clearly 
providential  ?  The  appointment  of  Ambrose  to  the 
see  of  Milan  at  that  precise  moment  led  doubtless 
to  a  marked  crisis  in  the  fortunes  of  the  Church,  and 
to  the  apprehension  of  the  age  it  might  appear  that 
it  could  not  have  taken  place  without  some  patent 
token  of  Divine  interference.  Certainly,  such  a  story 
occurring  in  secular  annals  would  be  i-egarded  as 
plainly  mythical  by  the  modern  school  of  historical 
criticism.  But,  however  this  may  be,  its  value  would 
be  recognised  as  showing,  even  though  it  were  an 
involuntary  fiction,  that  the  election  of  a  bishop  by 
the  voice  of  the  people  might  be  accepted  as  valid 
at  the  time,  and  its  validity  sanctioned  by  the  judg- 
ment of  a  later  generation.  '  I  know  but  one  bishop,' 
said  the  Emperor  Theodosius,  enthusiastically,  ten 
years  later,  '  and  that  is  Ambrose.'  Another  curious 
sign  of  contemporary  opinion  appears  in  the  fact  that 
Ambrose  was  not  only  a  layman,  but  up  to  that 
moment  had  never  been  baptized.  He  was  admitted 
immediately  to  the  rite  of  Christian  initiation,  and 
received  consecration  a  few  days  after. 

Doubtless  the  circumstances  of  this  extraordinary 
election  recommended  the  new  prelate  to  the  con- 


6y.  Ambrose.  19 


fidence  of  the  Emperor  Valentinian,  who  on  his 
deathbed,  in  the  year  375,  entrusted  his  tender  child 
Grratian  to  his  favourite's  special  care.  Grratian  soon 
afterwards  placed  his  able  general  Theodosius  at  the 
head  of  the  Eastern  provinces,  and  retained  for  him- 
self the  charge  of  the  Western  only,  establishing 
his  residence,  as  usual,  at  Milan.  The  temper  of 
Ambrose  was  bold  and  haughty  ;  the  young  prince 
was  timid  and  compliant.  The  opportunity  seemed 
to  have  arrived  for  advancing  the  Christian  Chm-ch 
from  the  status  of  mere  recognition  to  that  of 
superiority  and  of  exclusive  support  from  the  govern- 
ment. The  Bishop  recognised  her  opportunity,  and 
began,  it  would  seem,  with  demanding  the  sup- 
pression of  heresy  within  the  Christian  pale  itself. 
Ecclesiastical  councils  had  decided  on  points  of  faith, 
and  the  Emperors  had  convened  and  presided  at 
these  councils.  It  might  be  urged,  accordingly,  that 
disregard  of  the  decrees  of  councils  was  disloyalty  to 
the  sovereign,  and  as  such  might  be  legitimately 
punished  by  the  secular  arm.  The  ancient  law  of 
Majestas  might  still  cast  its  shadow  over  the  tri- 
bunals. It  is  not  clear  that  as  yet  any  reputed 
heretic  had  been  directly  subjected  to  legal  penalti(^s 
for  his  errors  in  belief.  Priscillian,  the  first  who  is 
c  2 


20  S^.  Ambrose. 


supposed  to  have  thus  suffered,  was  charged  at  least 
at  the  same  time  with  gross  immorality,  and  Ambrose 
is  said  to  have  regretted  the  capital  sentence  which 
was  pronounced  upon  him.  Yet,  when  all  was  over, 
Ambrose  could  exclaim,  not  without  exultation, '  The 
Emperor  has  shut  the  mouths  of  the  heretics ;  would 
that  he  could  change  their  hearts ! '  But  from 
coercing  a  Christian  heresy,  even  if  technically  illegal, 
it  was  but  a  short  step  to  insult  and  degrade  the 
long-sanctioned  and  legitimised  forms  of  Paganism. 
Grratian  himself,  following  the  accepted  traditions  of 
the  government,  was  not  unwilling  to  temporize 
with  the  votaries  of  the  Olympian  consistory. 
Christian  though  he  was,  he  did  not  scruple  to  allow, 
even  to  command,  his  father's  apotheosis.  The  poet 
Ausonius  celebrates  this  act  as  a  signal  mark  of  filial 
piety,  and  it  is  probable  that  Ausonius  was  himself 
at  least  a  nominal  Christian.  Gratian  took  into  his 
special  favour  the  sophist  Themistius,  unquestion- 
ably a  Pagan,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  panegyric, 
in  which  his  name  is  associated  with  the  praises  of 
the  ancient  divinities.  The  Imperial  believer  is  not 
displeased  with  the  profane  flattery  of  his  unbelieving 
subjects.  But  suddenly,  in  the  year  382,  four  years 
after  his  accession,  lie  allows  the  world  to  know  that 


S^.  Amlrose.  21 


the  influence  of  the  Christian  bishop  is  fully  in  the 
ascendant,  and  that  Paganism  is  to  suffer  alike  in 
its  material  interests  and  in  the  sentiments  which 
are  dearest  to  it.  From  this  period  we  may  date  the 
first  attacks  upon  the  revenues  of  the  old-established 
faith.  Grratian  seizes  upon  the  endowments  of  the 
temples,  which  had  been  enriched  through  long  ages 
of  munificence  by  lands  and  treasures  appropriated 
to  their  maintenance  by  their  votaries.  He  revokes 
the  various  secular  privileges  of  many  priesthoods ; 
he  abolishes  the  venerable  institution  of  the  Vestals : 
perhaps  he  said  to  them,  like  a  great  Eeformer  of 
later  days,  '  Go,  spin,  ye  jades' ;  but  the  nuns  of 
modern  times  have  never  been  invested  with  the 
exceeding  sanctity  which  attached,  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Pagans,  to  the  sacred  virgins,  on  whose  inviolate 
purity  the  salvation  of  the  Empire  was  reputed  to 
depend.  The  decrees  for  the  forfeitiu-e  of  religious 
property  were  no  doubt  very  imperfectly  executed,  as 
may  be  learnt  from  many  historical  notices  of  later 
times ;  but  an  affront,  more  odious  than  any  injury, 
was  still  in  store  for  the  votaries  of  the  ancient  cult. 
Gratian  commanded  the  removal  of  the  altar  and  statue 
of  Victory  from  the  Senate-house  at  Kome  itself. 
We  may  not  at  first  sight  comprehend  the  full 


2  2  SL  Ambrose. 


significance  which  the  Pagans  in  the  city  attached 
to  this  arbitrary  act.  We,  Cambridge-men,  have, 
I  dare  say,  all  remarked  the  statue  of  Victory  which 
has  stood,  longer  back  than  any  of  us  can  remember, 
in  the  Law-School  of  our  University.  I  know  not 
how  many  of  us  may  be  aware  that  this  work  of  art 
originally  graced  our  Senate-house,  where  it  has 
been  replaced,  I  believe,  by  the  still  more  interesting 
effigy  of  William  Pitt.  Still  I  may  venture  to 
think  that  the  noble  hall  wherein  our  degrees  are 
conferred  and  our  prizes  awarded,  wherein  we  receive 
and  decorate  our  distinguished  visitors,  wherein  so 
many  of  our  illustrious  alumni  have  contended  for 
the  honour  of  representing  us  in  Parliament,  was  a 
fitter  shrine  for  the  statue  of  Victory  than  the  exa- 
mination-room or  school,  which  is  but  a  vestibule, 
as  it  were,  to  her  temple.  But  the  sentiment  of  the 
Romans  of  the  declining  Empire  towards  the  god- 
dess who  had  so  long  protected  and  distinguished 
tliem  must  have  been  far  keener  and  more  fervid. 
One  by  one  the  glories  of  the  Olympians  had 
faded  from  sight.  They  might  engage  the  formal 
attentions  of  a  scanty  remnant  among  the  vulgar, 
but  hardly  of  more  or  worthier  votaries.  The  re- 
ligious feeling  of  the  religious  people  of  the  day, 


S/.  Ambrose.  23 


whether  they  were  few  or  many,  had  become  fixed 
upon  certain  abstractions  of  which  Rome,  the  city 
itself,  the  pledge  of  Empire,  approached  nearest  to 
a  concrete  substance;  the  rest  were  of  the  most 
shadowy  nature,  such  as  Fortune,  and  Fame,  and 
Victory.'  For  Victory  at  least,  or  for  the  visible 
image  of  Victory,  there  could  be  no  more  fitting 
shrine,  no  place  more  touching  to  the  popular  imagi- 
nation, than  the  fabric  in  which  the  august  senators 
still  met,  and  still  repeated  a  faint  echo  of  the 
debates  by  which  the  conquest  of  the  world  had 
been  once  directed.  The  statue  of  Victory,  with  the 
oblations  oh  its  altar,  might  still  be  regarded  as  a 

'  I  will  go  a  little  out  of  my  way  to  point  out,  to  those  who 
may  care  to  refer  to  it,  a  passage  from  Statius  {Thehaid,  x.  628) 
at  the  end  of  the  first  century,  in  which  the  poet  describes,  with 
much  circumlocution  and  apparent  hesitation,  a  nameless  god- 
dess who  inspires  men  with  virtus,  a  quality  which  transcends 
mere  valour,  inasmuch  as  it  bears  some  moral  significance 
also  : — 

'  Nunc  age,  quis  stimulos  et  pulchrae  gaudia  mortis 

Addiderit  juveni,  &c.  .  .  . 

Diva  Jovis  solio  juxta  comes,  unde  per  orbem 

Rara  dari,  terrisque  solet  contingere,  virtus  ; 

Seu  pater  omnipotens  tribuit,  sive  ipsa  capaces 

Elegit  penetrare  viros,'  &c.  .  .  .  Comp.  v.  783. 

In  simpler  ages  such  a  divine  grace  or  impulse  would  have 
been  ascribed  to  Minerva ;  but  now  a  new  motive  power  must 
be  introduced  for  which  no  name  or  concrete  personality  ha 
been  invented.     We  are  admitted  for  once  to  tlie  actual  birth 
of  an  abstract  divinity. 


24  SL  Amh'ose. 


visible  pledge  of  the  Empire  which  had  been 
acquired  by  three  hundred  conquests.  The  Pagans 
might  well  adore  it  as  the  palladium  of  the  State 
novv  so  fearfully  threatened  by  foreign  invasion  and 
internal  revolution. 

The  senators  of  Eome  had  long  forfeited  all 
their  ancient  power  ;  but  they  had  not  forgotten  the 
craft  by  which  in  other  times  their  policy  had 
been  no  less  distinguished.  To  craft  they  must  now 
resort.  The  old  Pagan  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus 
had  been  for  ages  held  inseparable  from  the  Imperial 
dignity.  Augustus  had  demanded  it,  and  his  succes- 
sors, one  after  another,  had  jealously  retained  it. 
This  title  connected  the  Csesar  most  closely  with  the 
established  creed  of  the  Empire  ;  it  gave  him  control 
over  the  ritual  of  the  national  religion,  and  power 
over  the  introduction  of  foreign  cults.  Accordingly 
Gratian,  Christian  though  he  professed  himself,  was 
at  the  same  time  Supreme  Pontiff  of  the  Pagans,  and 
still  inscribed  the  title  upon  his  coins,  as  his  Chris- 
tian predecessors  had  all  done  before  him.  But  the 
Senate  conceived  the  idea  of  utilising  his  acceptance 
of  this  prerogative  for  their  own  objects.  They 
aimed  at  making  the  Pagan  character  of  the  sove- 
reign  conspicuous    and  unmistakable;   at  insisting 


S^.  Ambrose. 


on  the  reality  of  what  men  were  disposed  to  treat 
quietly  as  a  guileless  fiction.  A  robe,  preserved 
with  special  care  in  the  Capitol,  was,  it  seems,  the 
outward  symbol  of  this  supreme  pontificate.  The 
College  of  Priests,  under  the  direction  of  the  Senate, 
brought  forth  this  venerable  vestment,  and  bore  it 
pompously  into  Gaul,  where  Gratian  chanced  to  be 
then  sojouiTiing.  Ambrose,  it  seems,  always  a  con- 
fidential favourite,  was  then  in  attendance  upon  the 
Emperor,  and  being  consulted  by  him,  declared  that 
the  time  had  come  for  him  to  perform  the  duty  in 
which  his  august  forerunners  had  hitherto  failed. 
Gratian,  at  the  prompting  of  the  Christian  prelate, 
refuses  to  accept  the  proffered  robe.  This,  says  he,  is 
a  decoration  altogether  unbecoming  to  a  Christian 
man.  The  Pontiffs  are  struck  with  consternation. 
Their  cunning  device  has  been  baffled.  The  Empe- 
ror has  pronounced,  more  unequivocally  than  ever, 
for  the  new  faith  and  against  the  old.  A  great 
crisis  in  the  spiritual  history  of  man  is  evidently  at 
hand.  Nevertheless  the  victory  is  not  yet  complete, 
possibly  not  yet  assured.  The  time-honoured  com- 
promise between  the  two  parties  must  still  for  a 
time  endure.  Gratian,  who  has  refused  the  robe, 
allows  himself  notwithstanding:  to  flourish  the  title 


26  S^.  Ambi'ose. 


which  it  betokens.  Jn  his  official  acts,  upon  his 
medals,  he  is  still  qualified  as  Pontifex  Maximus ; 
in  the  same  spirit  perhaps  as  our  Henry  VIII. 
clutched  the  title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith  after  he 
had  rejected  the  Faith,  at  least  the  outward  form  of 
faith  which  he  had  originally  undertaken  to  defend. 
If  any  one  had  contested  Henry's  claim  to  this  title, 
he  would  have  surely  suffered  for  it;  and  if  any 
one  had  complained  of  the  similar  inconsistency  in 
the  conduct  of  Gratian  he  would  have  fallen,  amid 
general  acclamation,  under  the  sentence  of  Imperial 
law.  So  illogical  can  we  be  when  it  suits  us,  both 
ancients  and  moderns  !  Yet  we  may  recognise  in  this 
trivial  matter  the  hand  of  a  disposing  Providence. 
It  was  well  for  the  growth  of  Christianity  at  this 
crisis  that  neither  at  Eome  nor  at  Milan  should  the 
Bishop  yet  have  room  to  thrust  himself  into  the 
place  of  sovereign  Pontiff  or  supreme  director  of 
men's  consciences.  Rightly  or  wrongly  the  title  was 
still  occupied  by  the  secular  power,  which  would  not 
yet  suffer  itself  to  be  called  in  question  by  a  mere 
spiritual  priesthood. 

Meanwhile  political  events  were  working  in 
favour  of  the  Christians.  Gratian  fell  indeed  in  a 
mutiny  headed  by  one  of  his  officers;  but  whatever, 


S/.  Ambrose.  27 


had  been  Ambrose's  influence  with  Gratian  it  was 
redoubled  when  he  became  the  adviser  of  Gratian's 
brother,  the  younger  Valentinian.  The  moment  was 
critical.  The  usurper's  name  was  Maximus.  This 
man  called  himself  a  Pagan,  at  least  the  Pagans 
rested  their  hopes  on  him.  While  the  blow  which 
he  eventually  struck  was  still  suspended,  one  of  the 
priests  whom  Gratian  had  disappointed  was  heard  to 
mutter :  '  If  Gratian  will  not  be  Pontifex  Maximus, 
Maximus  will  soon  be  pontifex.'  When  Gratian  fell 
the  Pagan  historian  declares  that  he  was  justly 
punished  for  the  affront  he  had  put  upon  ministers 
of  the  ancient  religion.  The  usurper,  it  was  anti- 
cipated, would  lay  the  lesson  to  heart.  The  position 
of  Ambrose  was  now  doubtless  a  difficult  one. 
Maximus  seems  to  have  been  disposed  to  treat  him, 
as  well  as  his  party  generally,  with  forbearance.  He 
did  not  care  to  raise  up  for  himself  more  enemies. 
Ambrose,  for  his  part,  was  not  unwilling  to  acquiesce 
in  the  course  which  worldly  prudence  dictated.  He 
refrained  from  irritating  the  tyrant,  who  could  be 
himself  so  forbearing.  Perhaps  it  was  through  the 
Bishop's  counsels  and  complacent  attitude  that 
JNIaximus  was  led  to  content  himself  with  the  com- 
mand of  the  army,  and  to  allow  the  Imperial  province 


28  SL  Ambj^ose. 


of  Italy  to  retain  its  fidelity  to  Grratian's  younger 
brother,  mere  stripling  though  he  was.  If  it  was 
the  courtly  prelate  who  protected  Valentinian  and 
preserved  the  title  of  Emperor  for  him,  Ambrose 
gained  his  reward  in  the  unbounded  authority  he 
was  shortly  enabled  to  exercise  over  him. 

Doubtless  the  Pagan  party  at  Eome  regarded  the 
success  of  Maximus  as  an  encouragement  to  their 
own  views.  They  proceeded  promptly  to  draw  from 
it  all  the  advantage  which  it  presented  to  them. 
Most  honoured  among  their  leaders  was  the 
illustrious  orator  Symmachus,  a  decided  Pagan,  the 
pupil  and  inheritor  of  the  fame  of  the  not  less 
illustrious  Libanius,  who  had  been  Julian's  cliief 
adviser.  By  counsel  of  this  personage,  who  was 
holding  high  office  in  the  ancient  capital,  they 
determined  to  demand  of  the  Imperial  infant,  not 
the  assumption  of  the  pontifical  vestment,  but  the 
restoration  of  the  statue  of  Victory  itself.  They  sent 
a  deputation  to  Milan  with  this  object,  placing 
Symmachus  as  their  spokesman  at  its  head.  They 
were  dismayed  perhaps  at  finding  that  the  timid 
child,  whom  they  hoped  to  overawe,  had  already 
thrown  himself  into  the  arms  of  Ambrose,  and  had 
allowed  the  Bishop  to  arrange  for  a  personal  disputa- 


S^.  Ambrose.  29 


tion  on  the  matter  in  hand,  in  which  Symmachus 
should  first  urge  his  demand,  and  Ambrose  confront 
it  with  a  formal  reply.  And  so  the  battle  of  the  old 
faith  and  the  new  was  openly  fought  and  won  in  a 
memorable  encounter. 

The  Christian  party,  which  gained  the  victory, 
could  afford  to  publish  the  arguments  on  either  side ; 
and  so  it  happens  that  we  possess  at  this  day  the 
actual  manifestoes  put  forth  by  the  rival  creeds  each 
in  face  of  the  other. 

Kings  and  courts  have  listened  in  later  times  to 
the  word-fence  of  polemical  disputants,  and  theolo- 
gical students  have  followed  with  interest,  and  some- 
times with  profit,  the  recorded  arguments  of  earnest 
combatants,  fighting  for  their  faith  and  hope,  their 
honour,  and  perhaps  even  their  lives.  It  must  be 
confessed,  however,  that  on  the  occasion  before  us, 
the  first  I  suppose  of  its  kind,  neither  of  the  orators 
showed  himself  equal  to  the  duty  imposed  upon  him. 
Each  of  them  plainly  sought  the  victory  rather 
than  the  truth.  Each  was  content  to  use  just  the 
weapons  which  he  deemed  most  effective  for  his  im- 
mediate object.  Each  appeared  at  the  bar  as  an 
advocate,  and  rhetoric  in  those  days  was  easily 
accepted  for  counsel  or  for  persuasion.     Perhaps  it 


30  SL  Ainbj'ose. 


may  be  said  that  neither  the  creed  of  the  Pagan 
nor  the  creed  of  the  Christian  admitted  of  such 
methods  of  reasoning  as  would  convince  the  other. 
Even  if  the  Pagan  could  have  produced  any  plausi- 
ble evidence  for  his  auguries,  his  visions,  and  his 
miracles,  the  Christian  might  have  afforded  to  admit 
it  liberally,  while  he  alleged,  on  his  part,  that  such 
naarvels  might  be  the  work  not  of  the  true  God  only, 
but  also  of  demons.  Had  the  Christian  appealed 
to  the  supernatural  in  Scripture,  the  Pagan  might 
of  course  have  made  a  similar  reply.  Against  the 
fulfilled  prophecies  of  Holy  Writ  he  would  have  set 
the  pretended  authority  of  the  Sibyls  and  the  Oracles, 
which  had  deceived  even  Christians  themselves. 
Such  arguments  were  in  fact  tacitly  relinquished  on 
both  sides.  The  contest  did  actually  resolve  itself 
mainly  into  the  assertion  by  the  Pagan  speaker  of 
the  protection  which  the  Olympian  deities  had  ever 
accorded  to  the  Roman  State,  culminating  in  an 
earnest  and  touching  appeal  to  the  claim  of  a  vener- 
able antiquity  and  the  common  consent  of  imme- 
morial wisdom  and  experience.  But  both  of  these 
propositions  Ambrose  meets  and  easily  refutes, 
showing  that  the  gods  had  abandoned  Rome  on 
many   critical  occasions,  and  were  even  then  aban- 


S^.  Ambrose. 


doning  her,  while  the  plea  of  antiquity  was  refuted  by 
the  notorious  habit  of  the  Romans  of  admitting  novel 
divinities  and  novel  usages  to  the  same  honours  with 
the  old.  The  Christian  had  doubtless  the  best  of 
the  argument,  such  as  it  was ;  but  we  cannot  fail  to 
be  much  disappointed  at  the  inconclusive  reasoning 
which  prevailed  almost  throughout  so  solemn  a 
debate.  Strange  it  must  seem  to  us  that  the  de- 
fender of  our  Faith  at  such  a  crisis  should  make  no 
reference  to  the  moral  beariugs  of  the  question,  no 
appeal  to  the  practical  results  of  a  living  creed  in 
purifying  the  heart,  in  instilling  principles  of  justice, 
honesty,  and  fortitude,  nor  to  the  spiritual  efficacy 
of  the  Grospel  in  lifting  men  above  the  world,  and 
creating  them  anew  in  the  likeness  of  the  Holy  One. 
No ;  the  argument  of  the  sainted  Bishop  is  of  the 
earth,  earthy.  Indeed  the  ease  with  which  he  gains 
so  complete  a  victory  with  such  weapons  as  he  deigns 
to  use  is  perhaps  the  most  significant  point  in  the 
whole  discussion. 

We  may  reflect,  however,  that  after  all,  every 
age  has  its  own  trials  in  religious  belief,  and  every 
age  provides  its  own  way  of  meeting  them.  The 
attacks  upon  the  Christian  faith,  and  the  defences 
opposed  to  them,  vary,  as  we  know,  from  one  genera- 


32  S^.  Ambrose. 


tion  to  another.  It  is  only  a  few  palmary  arguments 
on  either  side  that  retain  their  force  from  one 
generation  to  another.  The  attacks  of  Voltaire  and 
the  defence  of  Paley  have  both  lost  much  of  the 
repute  in  which  they  were  held  in  the  last  century  ; 
and  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  disparage  over- 
much the  reasoning  of  a  Symmachus  and  an  Ambrose, 
or  think  that,  because  they  have  little  value  for  us, 
they  did  not  touch  the  heart  of  the  audience  which  the 
speakers  undertook  in  their  turn  to  influence.  Let  us 
not  refuse  all  sympathy  with  the  spiritual  yearnings 
of  the  last  assertor  of  a  worn-out  creed,  nor  withhold 
our  admiration  from  the  bold  though  somewhat 
loose  declamation  of  the  Christian  orator,  to  whose 
zeal  the  intellectual  triumph  of  our  Faith  is  perhaps 
mainly  owing.  Ambrose,  as  may  be  supposed,  was 
judged  to  be  the  better  reasoner^  of  the  two ;  the 
statue  of  Victory  was  not  restored  to  the  Pagans ; 
and  from  that  time,  we  may  go  on  to  remark, 
Victory  herself,  that  '  winged  thing,'  as  the  poet  calls 
her,^  never  again  settled  on  their  standards;  the 
momentary  shadow  of  a  reaction  in  their  favour,  under 

*  Keats  {Hyperion,   ii.    341),  imagining   a  parallel   contest 
between  the  old  gods  of  classical  mythology  and  the  new  : 
•  That  was  before  we  knew  the  winged  thing, 
Victory,  might  be  lost,  or  might  be  won.* 


S^.  Ambrose.  33 


Eugenius,  some  years  later,  does  not  deserve  our 
consideration.  The  gains  of  the  Pagan  misbelief 
upon  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  Christians 
have  been  and  still  perhaps  are  more  insidious. 

This  was  the  first  great  victory  of  Ambrose.  It 
was  the  triumph  of  the  champion  of  Christianity, 
with  which  his  illustrious  name  must  ever  be  asso- 
ciated; but,  in  fact,  it  was  the  cause  which  triumphed 
rather  than  the  man.  The  time  was  ripe  for  it,  and 
almost  any  disputant  of  high  position  and  admitted 
ability  might  doubtless  have  gained  the  same  success 
on  the  same  arena.  If  Ambrose  owes  to  it  his  title 
of  Saint,  the  Church  of  Christ  owes  to  it,  by  Grod's 
providence,  her  historical  position  as  the  spiritual  ruler 
of  nations.  The  time  was  come  when  the  Church 
might  say  to  her  adversaries,  so  long  her  persecutors: 
'You  have  hitherto  been  the  strongest,  but  I  am 
the  stronger  now.  Up,  and  quit  your  place,  and 
there  let  me  seat  myself !  You  never  hearkened  to 
my  pleas  ;  little  heed  will  I  now  take  of  your?, 
except  it  be  to  deride  and  trifle  with  them.' 

So  far  the  Church  showed  herself  imperious,  per- 
haps arrogant,  but  the  spirit  of  ecclesiastical  intoler- 
ance was  now  beginning  to  arise.  True,  that  when 
the  secular  power  punished  the  heretic  Priscillian 

D 


34  '^^'  Ambi^ose. 


for  disloyalty  or,  it  may  be,  for  immorality  rather  than 
for  dogmatic  error,  Ambrose  could  express  himself 
grieved  and  shocked.  Nevertheless,  while  Paganism 
was  still  too  strong  to  have  her  temples  closed  and 
her  rites  forbidden,  he  did  not  scruple  to  set  the 
fatal  example  of  maltreating  the  Jews,  in  sup- 
porting an  impetuous  prelate  who  had  allowed  a 
synagogue  to  be  burnt,  and  forbidding  it  to  be 
rebuilt.  '  This  is  not  a  matter  of  police  and  social 
right,'  he  said ;  'there  is  a  religious  principle  involved 
in  it.  Keligion  must  be  paramount.'  From  that 
day  commenced  the  long  and  frightful  series  of 
Jewish  wrongs  throughout  Christendom.  Can  any- 
thing be  more  awful  ?  On  such  a  point  one  cannot 
speak  without  emotion;  nor  would  I  disguise  the 
satisfaction  I  cannot  but  feel  at  the  cowardice  this 
bold  oppressor  himself  betrays  when  it  is  his  cue 
to  flatter  the  new  usurper  Arbogastes,  who  had  mur- 
dered his  patron  Valentinian.  Ambrose  has  occa- 
sion to  pronounce  the  young  prince's  funeral  oration. 
Many  fine  things  he  says,  perhaps  not  unjustly,  of 
the  hapless  victim ;  but  when  he  is  obliged  at  last 
to  make  some  allusion  to  the  foul  deed  by  which  he 
fell,  the  Bishop  turns  courtier,  and  is  content  to 
intimate  that   politics  are  beyond  his  sphere ;    his 


kSV.  Ambrose. 


language,  he  declares,  is  the  accent  of  sorrow,  not 
of  accusation.  'Jesus  Christ  Himself  in  dying 
cursed  not  His  enemies,  but  prayed  for  them  ! '  So 
was  the  Church  of  Christ  put  to  its  first  trial  as  a 
State-Church,  and  it  fell !  Such,  again,  is  the  strain 
of  priestly  courtliness  wliich  in  later  times  and  other 
countries,  and  notably  in  Catholic  France  under  her 
Catholic  kings,  has  attained  its  evil  notoriety. 

But  Ambrose  was  allowed  to  gain  a  second 
victory,  a  more  difficult,  and  so  far  a  greater  victory 
than  the  first.  This  later  triumph  was  gained  indeed 
in  the  cause  of  the  Church  rather  than  of  the  Faith 
itself.  By  one  bold  and  resolute  stroke  he  shifted 
the  position  of  the  Church  from  that  of  a  handmaid 
of  the  secular  ruler  to  that  of  his  spiritual  controller. 
Such  at  least  was  the  claim  he  tacitly  advanced, 
and  deep  is  the  mark  it  has  made  on  the  history  of 
Christendom  ever  since,  wide  the  recognition  it  has 
received  among  Christian  communities  even  to  the 
present  day.  The  Papal  Syllabus,  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much  in  recent  times,  may  pretend  to  be 
the  legitimate  descendant  of  the  rebuke  inflicted  by 
Ambrose  upon  the  Emperor  Theodosius. 

This  illustrious  prince,  himself  a  great  captain 
and  the  son  of  the  greatest  captain  of  his  day,  had 

D  2 


36  S^.  Ambi^ose. 


been  called  by  the  Western  Emperor  Gratian  to  the 
throne  of  Constantinople,  and  had  saved  the  Eastern 
Empire  from  an  invasion   of  the  Goths.     He  was 
regarded  as  the  saviour  of  society ;  still  more  he  was 
regarded  by  the  orthodox  party  in  the  Church,  which 
was  now  regaining  its  ascendancy,  as  the  protector 
of  the  true  Faith.     He  was  reputed  to  be  an  earnest 
believer,  and  we  need  not  question  that  he  actually 
was  so.     At  a  later  period,  when  he  was  enabled  to 
unite  the  two  Empires  under  one  sceptre,  he  had  the 
courage  to  issue  edicts  for  the  closing  of  the  Pagan 
temples  and  the  abolition  of  their  services, — edicts 
loudly  proclaimed  indeed,  but   still  only  partially 
and  occasionally  enforced.      But  great,  and  brave, 
and  pious  as  we  may  hope  he  was,  a  deep  stain 
attached   to   his    character    from    the    massacre   he 
allowed  himself  to  commit  at  Thessalonica,  when  he 
brutally  avenged  a  popular  sedition  by  putting  to 
the  sword  seven  thousand  of  its  inhabitants.     The 
great  Christian  Emperor  repeated  the  frightful  crime 
of  the  monster  Caracalla,  at  which   all  Pagandom 
had  shuddered,  at  Alexandria.     We  may  well  believe 
that  the  Christians,  with  all  their  admiration  for  their 
august   patron,  were    sincerely  shocked   at   it,  and 
resented  the  advantage  such   a  scandal  would  give 


S^.  Amb7^ose. 


to  the  heretics  and  unbelievers.  It  would  be  a 
grand  stroke  of  policy,  they  might  think,  if  any  one 
among  them  would  bravely  denounce  it  before  the 
world,  and  demonstrate  to  the  Empire,  Pagan  as  well 
as  Christian,  that  the  faith  of  Christ  is  everywhere 
and  at  all  times  a  living  moral  power. 

This  was  the  step  which  Ambrose,  no  doubt  with 
more  than  ordinary  courage,  determined  to  take. 
He  addressed  the  guilty  tyrant  with  a  letter  :  '  You 
have  sinned,'  he  wrote,  'as  David  did.  Can  you 
hesitate  to  do  what  David  did  afterwards  ?  You 
have  imitated  him  in  his  crime ;  now  is  the  time  to 
emulate  him  in  his  penitence.  Devoted  as  I  am  to  your 
majesty  in  all  otlier  matters,  this,  at  least,  I  am 
constrained  to  declare,  that  I  could  not  offer  in  your 
presence  the  Holy  Sacrifice !  I  could  not  do  so  after 
the  spilling  of  one  innocent  man's  blood.  How  then 
could  I  do  so  after  your  spilling  the  blood  of  such 
a  multitude  ?  ' 

To  this  address  Theodosius,  it  seems,  makes  no 
reply,  but  on  his  return  to  Milan  goes  without  demur 
to  the  cathedral.  The  Bishop  meets  him  at  the 
portal,  and,  in  the  name  of  the  Most  High,  forbids 
him  to  ent^r.  For  a  moment  the  Emperor  hesitates, 
and   essays  to  parley;    but    the   prelate   holds  his 


3S  6V.  Ambrose. 


ground  firmly,  and  he  desists  and  withdraws.  It  is 
not  till  after  a  penitence  of  eight  months'  duration 
that  Ambrose  suffers  him  to  present  himself  in  the 
church  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

The  story  is  simple  and  touching.  The  greatest 
arts — painting,  poetry,  sculpture — have  all,  it  has 
been  said,  assisted  the  Muse  of  History  in  colouring 
it  to  the  imagination,  and  impressing  it  upon  the 
heart  of  later  generations.  The  Church  felt  at  the 
moment  that  it  was  especially  in  her  interest  that 
the  gallant  deed  was  done,  and  the  Church  in  gene- 
ral, but  the  Church  of  Eome  more  particularly,  has 
drawn,  it  must  be  confessed,  some  audacious  corol- 
laries from  it.  The  name  of  the  holy  Ambrose  has 
been  constantly  made  use  of  as  a  battle-cry  against 
the  civil  power.  If  his  example  has  sometimes 
encouraged  churchmen  to  brave  and  noble  efforts  in 
resistance  to  secular  tyranny,  it  has  too  often  served, 
and  in  no  less  degree,  to  screen  the  encroachments  of 
ambition,  of  violence,  and  of  personal  rancour ;  too 
often  even  good  princes  have  had  to  curse  both 
the  arrogance  of  Ambrose  and  the  submissiveness 
of  Theodosius.  It  has  been  remarked  that  Pope 
Innocent  IV.  thus  cited  the  example  of  Theodosius 
to  the  devout   Saint  Louis,  the  eldest  son  of  the 


SL  Amdrose,  39 


Church,  and  at  the  same  time  to  his  excommunicated 
opponent,  the  second  Frederic  of  Grermany.  It  was 
precisely  in  the  spirit  of  Ambrose  that  the  Patriarch 
of  Jerusalem  had  laid  an  interdict  on  the  church  which 
this  wilful  prince  had  dared  to  enter.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  famous  exploit  of  the  Bishop  of 
Milan  sowed  the  seed  of  that  spiritual  arrogance 
which,  issuing  forth  here  and  there  in  many  lands 
and  in  divers  ages,  has  fructified  in  the  organised 
assumptions  of  the  Church  of  Eome,  and  so  strongly 
coloured  the  history  of  mediaeval  and  modern  Europe. 
These  assumptions  have  been  encountered,  as  we 
know,  by  the  indignant  resistance  of  princes  and 
peoples,  so  as  to  give  to  the  general  course  of  Chris- 
tian progress  the  appearance  of  a  continual  struggle  ; 
so  as  to  set  the  secular  interests  of  human  nature  in 
constant  opposition  to  the  spiritual  claims  upon  them, 
to  exasperate  the  temper  of  both  the  rival  claimants, 
to  persuade  the  laity  that  the  Church  has  no  just 
authority,  the  churchmen  that  its  authority  has  no 
limits.  Possibly,  if  Ambrose  had  foreseen  the  super- 
structure of  priestly  aggression  which  has  been  raised 
on  the  foundation  he  thus  blindly  laid,  he  might 
have  modified  an  act  which  was  destined  to  produce 
such  questionable  results ;  which  has  set  in   many 


40  S^.  Amdrose. 


minds  the  idea  of  the  Church  and  of  reconciliation 
with  the  Church,  before  that  of  God  and  of  recon- 
ciliation with  God  ;  and  has  recommended  formalism 
and  unreality  to  the  men  of  formal  and  unreal 
character  who  have  never  failed  to  abound  among  us. 
Nevertheless,  let  us  not  deny  his  just  title  to  our 
admiration  for  his  noble  spirit  and  loyalty  to  the 
faith  he  preached.  Let  us  not  grudge  him  the  glory 
he  has  acquired  throughout  Christendom  for  the 
ideal  of  Christian  order  which  he  was  the  first  to 
blazon  to  the  world.  Doubtless  it  was  well  that  the 
first  signal  act  of  authority  on  the  part  of  the 
Christian  ministry,  on  its  attaining  a  public  position, 
should  be  directed,  not  against  the  obscure  failings 
of  private  individuals,  but  against  the  notorious 
crime  of  the  secular  governor.  The  attention  of  all 
mankind  was  thus  drawn  at  once  to  the  new  princi- 
ples which  laid  claim  to  their  devout  veneration,  and 
from  henceforth  Christianity  could  not  fail  to  com- 
mand their  awe  and  sway  their  fears  and  aspirations. 
We  must  remark,  indeed,  some  inconsistency  in 
the  timidity  with  which  the  same  monitor  who  had 
rebuked  the  sin  of  Theodosius  shrank  from  any 
reflection,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  that  of  Arbogastes, 
the  murderer  of  Valentinian.  Some  critics,  contrasting 


SL  Amh^ose.  41 


his  attitude  in  the  one  case  and  in  the  other,  have 
ventured  to  insinuate  that  he  must  have  received 
a  previous  assurance  that  the  Emperor  would  not 
resent  his  boldness  ;  the  striking  scene  between  them 
was  no  more,  they  imagine,  than  a  theatrical  per- 
formance arranged  for  some  common  object.  But 
this  far-fetched  supposition  does  not  commend  itself 
to  any  serious  attention.  It  might  be  enough 
perhaps  to  reply  that  after  all  Theodosius  was  known 
to  be  a  civilised  man,  a  religious  man,  and  a 
Christian  believer,  whereas  Arbogastes  was  a  bar- 
barian, of  no  religion  at  all.  It  might  be  easier  to 
be  firm  and  even  bold  with  the  one  than  with  the 
the  other.  But  we  cannot  enter  further  into  circum- 
stances of  which  we  have  no  real  knowledge.  Histo- 
rical conjecture  or  divination  may  be  the/o?'^e  of  a 
Tacitus  or  a  Niebuhr ;  but  it  is  the  foible  of  too  many 
lesser  historians.  Let  us  be  content,  then,  with  what 
we  do  know,  and  remember  that  Theodosius  is  a  pro- 
minent character  in  Roman  and  Christian  history, 
who  has  not  failed  to  leave  distinct  traces  of  his  own 
individuality,  and  at  the  same  time  to  throw  light 
upon  the  temper  of  his  contemporaries  and  of  the  age 
in  which  they  lived. 

Ambrose,  it  may  be  presumed,  was  well  aware 


42  S^.  Ambrose. 


that  this  great  captain  and  administrator  was  a  man 
of  strong  character,  and  resolute  in  carrying  out  the 
views  on  which  his  mind  was  fixed.  *  He  knew  that 
Theodosius  was  not  only  a  Christian  on  conviction, 
but  a  believer  who  accepted  the  Church  as  the    in- 
terpreter of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  and  based  the 
authority  of  the  Church  upon  primitive  traditions. 
These  were  his  vouchers  for  the  orthodox  or   Atha- 
nasian   theology  ;  and  he  presented  himself  accord- 
ingly to  the  Christian  world  as  the  champion  of  the 
Trinitarian  against  the  Arian  section  of  believers, 
which  had  been  during  the  last  half  century  pretty 
equally  balanced.     Zealous  himself  in  vindication  of 
the  orthodox  theory,  he  was  disposed  to  regard  the 
great  divines  who  maintained  it  with  especial  vene- 
ration ;  to  esteem  them  highly  for  their  work's  sake, 
as  divinely  appointed  defenders  of  the  Faith  ;  to  in- 
vest their  language  and  acts  with  the  character  of  a 
Divine  revelation.     We  may  well  believe  that  such 
an  enthusiast  would  see  in  the  bold  rebuke  of  the 
Bishop  of  Milan  a  dispensation  from  on  High,  and 
feel  himself  honoured  rather  than  humiliated  by  so 
special  an  intervention  of  the  Head  of  the  Church  to 
which   he   had  devoted   himself.     He  withdrew,  I 
would  say,  elated  rather  than  abashed  from  the  door 


S/.  Ambrose.  43 


which  was  closed  so  rudely  in  his  face ;  he  underwent 
his  penance  of  eight  months'  exclusion  apparently 
without  a  murmur ;  he  continued  throughout  to  re- 
gard the  minister  of  Divine  justice  with  awe  and  un- 
failing obedience ;  he  persevered  in  the  policy  on  which 
he  had  already  entered,  of  discrediting  and  repressing, 
though  not  without  hesitation  and  reserve,  the  mani- 
festations of  Paganism  throughout  the  Empire.^ 

There    is   a  consideration  which  deserves  to  be 

^  Bnngener,  Seances  Histmnques  a  Geneve,  1858,  page  190. 
'  En  louant  magnifiquement  le  z61e  de  Theodose  Ambroise 
entendait  moins  le  remercier  de  ce  qu'il  avait  fait,  que  le 
pousser  ^  faire  davantage.  Le  nom  de  Theodose  n'en  a  pas 
moins  ete  invoque  depuis,  toutes  les  fois  qu'il  s'est  agi  de  louer 
des  persecuteurs  ou  de  pousser  a  la  persecution ;  ses  lois  contre 
les  pa'iens  ont  fait  verser  des  torrents  de  sang  dans  I'eglise.  Ce 
n'etait  pas  assez  du  Theodose  de  I'histoire ;  on  a  fait  un 
Theodose  ideal,  plus  absolu,  plus  cruel  que  ne  fut  jamais  le 
veritable,  et  c'est  celui-14  que  Rome  a  propose  toutes  les  fois 
qu'elle  le  pouvait  ou  I'osait,  a  I'imitation  des  souverains. 
NuUe  difference,  sur  ce  point,  entre  la  Rome  ultramontaine  et 
la  Rome  d'autre  pays.  Quand  Innocent  III.  pousse  4  I'extermi- 
nation  des  Albigeois, — Theodose,  Theodose  !  Quand  les  eveques 
d'Angleterre  poussent  Henri  VIII.  Catholique  4  1 'extermination 
des  Lutheriens  du  pays, — Theodose,  Theodose  !  Quand  Leon  X. 
pousse  Frangois  I.  ^  I'extermination  des  Lutheriens  en  France, — 
Theodose  !  Quand  Bossuet,  enfin,  cel^bre  Louis  XIV. — Theodose, 
Theodose  !  .  .  .  Et  c'est  pour  meriter  ce  titre  que  le  nouveau 
Theodose  poursuivra  impitoyablement  son  oeuvre,  plus  dur  et  de 
beaucoup,  contre  les  malheureux  Chretiens,  que  ne  fut  1 'autre 
jadis,  contre  les  pa'iens  et  le  paganisme.  Rome  excelle  a  tirer 
parti  d'un  nom  pour  etablir  ou  amplifier  un  principe.' 


44  ^^'  Ambrose. 


borne  in  mind  when  we  read  of  the  suppression  of 
the  Pagan  rites  and  the  services  of  the  temples.    The 
endowments  of  the  temples  throughout  the  Empire, 
numerous  and  wealthy  as  they  were,  had   been  for 
the  most  part  assigned  to  individuals  charged  with 
defraying  the  necessary  expenses.     So  far  these  en- 
dowments were  similar  in  principle  to  those  which 
have  been  commonly  provided  throughout  Christen- 
dom   for   the   ministers  of  the  Christian   churches. 
But  in  Christian  lands  these  ministers  form  a  class 
apart,   a  profession  which  has  generally   been   but 
slenderly  provided  with  private  means,  and    which 
accordingly   has  exercised  little  influence  in    State 
affairs,  except  in  the  case  of  mediaeval  bishops  and 
abbots.     In  the  Pagan  Empire  the  case   was  very 
different.     There  it  was  the  nobles  and  great  secular 
personages  who  enjoyed  for  the  most  part  the  funds 
appropriated  to  religious  objects.     There  existed  no 
clerical  profession  of  religious  teachers ;  but  certain 
families,  in  many  cases  the  most  powerful    of  the 
governing  class,  were  often  the  hereditary  guardians 
of  certain   temples.     They  were  especially  charged 
by  law,  or  a  common   understanding  derived  from 
ancient  tradition,  with  the  maintenance   of  special 
services,  not  for  the  spiritual  benefit  of  individual 


vSV.  Ambrose.  45 


worshippers,  but  in  the  interest  of  the  public  and 
for  the  safety  of  the  commonwealth.  Now  it  is  one 
thing  to  disendow  a  class,  such  as  the  modern  clergy, 
for  the  most  part  poor  and  humble,  and  of  little 
secular  repute,  and  quite  another  to  carry  out  such  a 
process  against  a  large  and  powerful  body  of  high 
families,  and  the  most  distinguished  personages  in 
the  realm.  It  seems  clear  that,  as  might  indeed  be 
expected,  the  earliest  edicts  for  the  confiscation  of 
the  temple-endowments  under  Gratian,  big  and  stern 
as  they  look  in  the  codes  or  statute-book,  were  prac- 
tically of  little  effect.  If  many  temples  were  really 
closed,  as  we  may  readily  believe,  though  certainly 
by  no  means  all  or  the  greater  number  of  them,  we 
must  suppose  that  the  lordly  holders  of  their  pro- 
perty contrived  to  retain  the  enjoyment  of  the  funds, 
while  they,  not  unwillingly  perhaps,  relieved  them- 
selves from  the  services  for  which  these  funds  had 
been  originally  given.  Theodosius  found  the  Pagan 
priesthood  despoiled  of  their  wealth  in  name  only, 
and  however  earnest  he  might  be  in  his  Christian 
profession,  he  long  abstained,  both  in  policy  and 
mercy,  from  asserting  the  full  authority  of  previous 
enactments.  He  prudently  made  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  property  attached  to  the  temples  and  that 


46  Si.  Ambi^ose. 


which  was  appropriated  to  the  maintenance  of  the 
popular  ganaes  and  shows.  If  he  allowed  the  first 
to  be  sacrificed,  he  withdrew  the  latter  more  gradu- 
ally and  partially.  The  ministers  of  the  temples 
could  be  propitiated  by  the  share  of  the  spoil  which 
he  suffered  to  fall  to  their  lot.  The  Emperor  took  him- 
self, like  our  King  Henry,  a  large  part  of  these  estates, 
a  part  he  devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  his  soldiers, 
another  he  gave  or  sold  to  friends  and  flatterers.  Means 
are  not  wanting  for  facilitating  the  work  of  disendow- 
ing the  most  powerful  corporations  and  interests,  such 
as  have  been  found  more  than  once  in  om*  own  history, 
and  may  be  brought  into  operation  again.  The  Pagan 
orator  Libanius  has  certified,  like  our  pious  Spel- 
man,  to  such  as  are  disposed  to  credit  the  phenomenon, 
that  all  those  who  allowed  themselves  to  profit  by 
sacrilege  under  the  earlier  edict  of  Constantius, 
perished  miserably.  Nevertheless,  it  would  seem 
that  the  Pagans  themselves  were  not  deterred  from 
seeking  their  personal  emolument  by  the  later  confis- 
cations of  Gratian  and  Theodosius.  It  is  remarkable 
that  the  priesthoods  of  the  Pagan  superstitions,  the 
old  observance,  as  it  came  now  to  be  commonly  called, 
though  despoiled  of  their  endowments,  did  not 
quickly  cease  to  be  objects  of  attraction,  and  especi- 


S^.  Ambrose,  47 


ally,  it  is  said,  in  the  provinces.  They  still  conferred, 
it  would  seem,  some  social  distinction,  which  repaid 
the  expenses  which  were  imposed  upon  them,  and 
tempted,  strange  to  say,  even  Christians  to  solicit 
them.  The  Emperor  thundered  against  this  scandal, 
yet  even  Christians  were  known  to  evade  his  decrees 
by  apostatising  from  the  Faith.  Theodosius  replied 
by  pronouncing  such  wretches  legally  infamous.  Still 
encouraged  and  urged  forward  by  the  dominant  party, 
he  narrowed  more  and  more  the  limits  of  Pagan 
liberty,  and  finally  decreed  the  penalty  of  death  for 
the  performance  of  any  act  of  Pagan  sacrifice.  The 
execution  of  the  law  might  still  be  imperfect,  but 
its  animus  was  held  to  be  satisfactory.  Both  Con- 
stantine  and  Theodosius  may  be  raised  in  history  to 
heroic  proportions,  but  it  was  not  for  their  secular  so 
much  as  for  their  ecclesiastical  achievements  that 
they  were  hailed  with  the  illustrious  title  of  the 
Great. 

The  Imperial  legislation  on  the  subject  of  the 
Pagan  superstitions,  from  Grratian  to  Honorius — so 
much  of  it  at  least  as  has  been  collected  together  in 
the  Corpus  of  the  Eoman  Law  before  Justinian — is 
contained  in  the  tenth  title  or  chapter  of  the  Six- 
teenth Book.     The  progress  which  Theodosius  made 


48  S^.  Ambrose. 


in  accomplishing  the  object  of  suppressing  idolatry 
may  there  be  traced  step  by  step.     It  culminated,  as 
far  as  these  documents  show,  in  the  decree  of  the 
year   392   just   mentioned.     It   has   been   asserted, 
indeed,  that  this  pious  prince  took  a  still  further 
"tride  in   the  same    direction  in    commanding   the 
actual   overthrow  of  the  Pagan  temples.      But   no 
such  law  can  be  traced  in  our  records,  and  it  seems 
more   probable   that  it  was  pretended   only,  as  an 
excuse  for  the  irregular  violence  which  was  exercised 
in  divers  places  against  the  most  conspicuous  monu- 
ments of  the  proscribed  faith.     The  images  of  the 
gods  shared  the  fate  of  their  shrines.     '  The  colossal 
statue   of  Serapis,'  says    Gribbon,    in    a  well-known 
passage  of  his  'History,'  'was  involved  in  the  ruin 
of  his  temple  and  religion.   ...   It  was  confidently 
affirmed  that,  if  any  impious  hand  should  dare  to 
violate  the  majesty  of  the  god,  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  would  instantly  return  to  their  original  chaos. 
An   intrepid   soldier,  animated  by  zeal  and  armed 
with  a  weighty  battle-axe,  ascended  the  ladder ;  and 
even  the  Christian  multitude    expected  with  some 
anxiety   the   event  of  the   combat.      He   aimed   a 
vigorous  stroke  against  the  cheek  of  Serapis  ;    the 
cheek  fell  to  the  ground  ;  the  thunder  was  silent, 


Sif.  Ambrose.  ^g 


and  both  the  heavens  and  the  earth  continued  to  pre- 
serve their  accustomed  order  and  tranquillity.  The 
victorious  soldier  repeated  his  blows ;  the  huge  idol 
was  overthrown  and  broken  in  pieces,  and  the  limbs 
of  Serapis  were  ignominiously  dragged  through  the 
streets  of  Alexandria.  His  mangled  carcase  was 
burnt  in  the  amphitheatre,  amidst  the  shouts  of  the 
populace;  and  many  persons  attributed  their  eon- 
version  to  this  discovery  of  the  impotence  of  their 
tutelar  deity.  .  .  .  After  the  fall  of  Serapis  some 
hopes  were  still  entertained  by  the  Pagans  that  the 
Nile  would  refuse  his  annual  supply  to  the  impious 
masters  of  Egypt,  .  .  .  but  the  delay  was  soon 
compensated  by  the  rapid  swell  of  the  waters.' 

This  striking  incident  was  repeated  no  doubt 
with  the  same  effect  in  hundreds  of  instances  through- 
out the  world-wide  Empire,  though  still  more  fre- 
quently in  the  East  than  in  the  West.  In  Graul  and 
Spain,  in  Italy,  and  at  Eome  itself,  the  ancient  local 
traditions  lingered  more  persistently,  and  popular 
opinion  was  generally  too  strong  for  the  law,  and 
even  for  the  zeal  of  the  triumphant  votaries  of  the 
new  faith.  But  by  the  grace  of  Providence  at  the 
overthrow  of  the  Pagan  institutions,  a  fresh,  a 
vigorous,  and  a  true  belief  was  already  widely  dis- 

E 


50  S^.  Ambrose. 


seminated,  and  was  prepared  to  take  their  place,  and 
receive  into  its  bosom  the  dismayed  devotees  of  the 
fallen  superstitions.  The  multitude,  on  ceasing  to 
be  Pagan,  became  readily  Christian,  in  name  at  least 
and  outward  usage.  The  disendowment  of  the  tem- 
ples was  compensated  by  the  endowment  of  the 
churches.  The  temples  themselves  were  in  nume- 
rous instances  transformed,  with  little  change  in  their 
fabrics  or  decorations,  into  churches,  and  the  revenues 
which  had  been  appropriated  to  them  by  the  muni- 
ficence of  past  generations  were,  if  not  already 
alienated,  not  unfrequently  transferred  to  their  suc- 
cessors. The  piety  of  liberal  churchmen  was  stimu- 
lated to  complete  the  requisite  dotation  ;  the  devotion 
of  tithes  to  Grod's  service  was  encouraged,  and  urged 
as  an  act  of  piety.  All  classes  vied  with  each  other 
in  pouring  their  wealth  into  the  Church  as  the 
general  depository  of  the  public  alms  and  thank- 
offerings.  From  the  era  of  St.  Ambrose,  who  together 
with  his  patron  passed  away  before  the  close  of  this 
century  of  religious  revolution,  dates  the  final  settle- 
ment of  our  Faith  throughout  the  Empire  as  the 
acknowledged  director  of  the  human  conscience.  As 
the  old  religion  of  Pagan  Kome  had  been  esteemed 
the  guardian  and  pledge  of  the  fortunes  of  the  com- 


S^.  Aiitbrose. 


monwealth,  so  was  it  now  and  henceforth  with  the 
new  religion  derived  from  Christ  and  his  Apostles. 
Such  was  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  cemented 
by  the    popular   imagination    rather   than    by   any 
formal  and  technical  procedure.     Enough  that  the 
Emperor,  the  ruler  of  the  State,  was  henceforth  a 
Christian   by   profession  ;    that   all   his  public    and 
private  acts  were  sanctified  by  Christian  devotions ; 
that  he  convened,  and  directed  in  his  own  person,  the 
councils  of  Christian  divines  for  the  decision  of  theo- 
logical questions ;  that  in  many  cases  he  appointed 
the  chief  prelates  of  the  Christian  community ;  that 
the  rank  and  revenues  of  bishops  and  priests  were 
secured  to  them  by  the  law  of  the  Empire,  while  the 
ministers  of  every  false  religion  were  impoverished 
and  degraded ;  that  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the 
State  were   gradually,  and    at   least  partially,  con- 
formed to   the  prescriptions  of  Christian  morality. 
The  legislation  of  Church  and  State,  thus  combined 
and  mutually  influencing  one  another,    carried   on 
more  efficiently  the  humaner  principles  which  had 
already  broken  the  hard  crust  of  the  ancient  juris- 
prudence.     Some    immunities    and    securities    were 
granted  to  the  unfortunate  class  of  slaves,  with  whose 
bondage    the    antique    world,    neither    Pagan    nor 

K  2 


52  S^.  Ambrose. 


Christian,  could  dispense.  The  use  of  torture  was 
abolished  or  limited.  The  cruel  combats  of  the 
gladiators  were  discouraged  at  least  by  the  awakened 
Christian  conscience,  even  before  they  were  finally 
suppressed  by  Christian  law.  But  the  most  marked 
advance  in  Christian  sentiment  was  manifested,  first, 
in  the  universal  diffusion  of  religious  and  moral 
teaching  in  churches  planted  in  every  town  and 
village,  and  again  in  the  respect  paid  to  women,  and 
to  pureness  of  living  in  either  sex.  The  Church  and 
State  were  thus  practically  united;  they  lived  and 
moved  in  harmony  together.  God  Himself,  to  all 
human  appearance,  had  joined  them  together ;  the 
compact,  it  might  well  be  supposed,  was  complete 
and  enduring,  and  no  one  henceforth  should  put  it 
asunder.  It  should  be  added  that,  with  her  prosperity 
the  Church  recovered  the  primitive  spirit  of  tolera- 
tion, which  in  her  recent  struggles  she  was  on  the 
point  of  losing.  Paganism,  defeated  and  discredited, 
was  allowed  to  die  out  from  its  own  falsehood, — and 
it  continued  dying  for  some  centuries  at  least, — per- 
haps, in  some  sense,  it  is  not  yet  dead  altogether  in 
the  midst  of  us. 


LECTURE    II. 

ST.  AUGUSTINE :    SOME    LESSONS    FROM   HIS   LIFE    AND 
TEACHING. 

I  HAVE  already  chosen  St.  Ambrose  for  the  central 
figure  of  my  sketch  of  the  outward,  the  objective, 
the  visible  Church  of  the  century  which  followed 
upon  the  conversion  of  Constantino.  It  was  desirable 
for  the  purpose  of  these  elementary  Lectures  on  our 
early  ecclesiastical  history  to  take  another  similar 
figure  to  represent  the  leading  characteristics  of  the 
inner  life  of  the  Church,  its  religious  views  and 
sentiments,  during  nearly  the  same  important  period. 
For  this  object  no  more  suitable  personage  presents 
himself  than  he  who  is  regarded  by  common  consent 
as  the  greatest  of  the  Christian  Fathers,  the  most 
illustrious,  I  may  perhaps  say,  of  all  Christian 
thinners,  the  most  learned,  for  his  time  the  most 
enlightened,  let  me  add,  the  most  spiritually  minded 
of  the  early  Church,  St.  Augustine. 

As  Bishop  of  an  obscure  diocese  in  Africa,  far 


54  '^^'  Augitstine. 


removed  from  Eome  or  Constantinople,  this  eminent 
divine  could  not  appeal  efifectually  to  the  hearts  of 
men  from  the  circumstance  of  his  mere  outward 
position.  His  vast  influence  was  altogether  personal 
with  his  own  generation,  and  such  it  has  continued 
with  all  that  have  followed.  It  was  gained,  and  it 
has  been  ever  since  largely  maintained,  by  the  uni- 
versality of  his  learning,  the  prodigious  activity  with 
which  he  circulated  his  views  of  faith  and  practice, 
the  constancy  with  which  he  defended  the  Catholic 
doctrines,  the  energy  with  which  he  repelled  the 
attacks  of  heretics  and  unbelievers,  the  subtilty, 
we  may  add,  with  which  he  contrived  to  enlist  the 
philosophic  views  of  morality  in  the  cause  of  the 
Gospel.  In  an  age  of  abundant  theological  science 
Augustine  was  something  more  than  a  theologian ; 
in  an  age  of  superabundant  theological  pedantry  he 
was  less  than  any  divine  of  his  own  day — than  most 
of  any  day—  a  pedant.  We  may  almost  regard  it  as 
specially  providential  that  the  early  career  by  which  a 
character  so  signal  was  developed  should  be  preserved 
to  us  in  full  detail  in  the  remarkable  work  by  which 
Augustine  is  still  most  popularly  known,  the  '  Con- 
fessions,' which  constitute  his  moral  autobiography. 
It  is  from  this  book  that  we  derive,  in  the  first 


6V.  Atigustine.  55 


place,  almost  all  that  we  know  of  the  writer's  per- 
sonal history,  and  with  this  his  mental  and  spiritual 
growth  are  so  closely  connected  that  we  may  carry 
on  our  review  of  the  two  pretty  nearly  together. 

We  begin  by  marking  the  date  of  Augustine's 
birth  in  the  year  353,  about  ten  years  later  than  that 
of  Ambrose,  about  forty  years  after  the  first  recog- 
nition of  Christianity  by  Constantino.  His  birth- 
place was  Tagaste,  a  small  town  in  Numidia ;  his 
parents  were  of  humble  origin.  The  Christian  popu- 
lation of  the  district  derived  their  culture  from 
Carthage,  the  third  and  almost  the  second  city  of 
the  Empire,^  abounding  at  the  time  in  schools  of 
every  kind  of  learning,  and  the  home  of  many  diverse 
sects  of  philosophical  opinion  ;  but  there  was  no 
region  in  which  the  Gospel  had  made  more  progress 
than  that  which  had  been  illustrated  by  the  virtues 
of  Cyprian,  as  well  as  by  the  genius  of  Tertullian. 
For  some  centuries  Northern  Africa,  the  modern 
Tunis  and  Algeria,  the  paradise  of  the  Pax  Romana, 
was  perhaps  the  most  favoured  portion  of  the  world 

'  Ausonius,  after  placing  Rome  first,  says  of  this  city, 

'  Constantinopoli  assurgit  Carthago  priori, 
Non  toto  cessura  gradu,  quia  tertia  dici 
Fastidit,  nou  ausa  locum  sperare  secundum, 
Qui  fuit  ambarum.' 


56  »  SL  Augustine. 


in  wealth  and  tranquillity ;  the  birth  of  Augustine 
at  Tagaste  took  place  many  years  before  this  happy 
epoch  had  begun  to  be  overclouded  by  the  threat  of 
invasion  from  the  North. 

Patricius,  Augustine's  father,  was,  it  seems,  origi- 
nally a  Pagan,  a  man  of  indifferent  character  and  of 
no  personal  distinction.  The  future  Saint  inherited 
all  the  better  part  of  his  own  nature  from  his  mother, 
Monica,  illustrious  as  the  first  example  in  Christian 
history,  if  we  except  the  Eunice  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle, 
of  the  blessed  influence  of  the  mother  in  moulding 
the  character  of  the  beloved  offspring  to  the  highest 
Christian  model.  Few  figures  of  the  ancient  Church 
seem  more  familiar  to  us  than  that  of  the  pious 
mother  of  Augustine ;  and  it  deserves  our  regard 
and  veneration  as  the  G^ospel  type  of  female  virtue, 
which  bears  in  itself  a  touching  testimony  to  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  revelation.  Monica  is  said  to 
have  converted  her  husband  in  his  later  years,  and 
thus  to  have  secured  the  privilege  of  devoting  herself 
to  imbuing  their  child  with  her  own  religious  aspira- 
tions. She  gave  the  young  Augustine  his  first  lessons 
in  Christian  obedience,  and  taught  him  to  look  to  her 
with  devotion  and  confidence  as  a  blessed  example  of 
the  effects  of  a  Christian  confession;  but  it  was  not 


St  Augustine.  57 


imperative  to  bring  the  infant,  or  even  the  young 
child,  to  the  font,  and  enrol  him  in  his  tender  years 
under  the  sign  or  banner  of  the  Cross.  Augustine 
had  reached  the  stage  of  early  manhood,  and  he  was 
not  yet  baptized.  Leaving  his  early  home,  after 
the  death  of  his  father,  he  carried  with  him,  as  he 
tells  us,  merely  some  vague  ideas  of  the  faith  of  the 
Christian  disciples ;  he  retained  in  his  soul  no  more 
than  an  echo  of  the  name  of  Christ,  which  he  had 
heard  so  often  uttered  by  his  mother's  lips,  but  an 
echo  which  continued  to  vibrate  ever  and  anon 
through  the  many  years  of  doubt  and  perplexity 
which  were  to  elapse  before  he  became  himself,  by 
the  grace  of  Grod  and  through  his  mother's  prayers, 
not  almost  but  altogether  a  Christian. 

The  'Confessions  of  St,  Augustine '  present  us  with 
a  signal  instance  of  the  self-conscious,  self-accusing, 
self-tormenting  spirit  which  breathes,  through  all 
ages,  in  the  autobiographical  records  of  converts  to 
a  vital  faith.  We  are  well  aware  how  often  this 
spirit  is  exaggerated  and  perverted,  and  how  little 
reliance  can  be  placed  even  on  the  particular  details 
upon  which  it  delights  to  expatiate.  Such  a  spirit 
is  indeed  rather  a  matter  of  temperament  than  of 
reason  and  reflection,  and  while  it  merits  our  tender 


58  Si  Attgustme. 


and  even  reverential  regard,  we  must  ever  guard 
against  the  interest  which  it  is  only  too  well  calculated 
to  inspire.  We  remember,  not  without  an  awful  sense 
of  the  self-humiliation  which  such  repentance  should 
engender,  how  the  holy  Apostle  declared  of  himself 
that  he  was  '  the  chief  of  sinners.'  We  must  not  be 
surprised  then  to  hear  the  vehement  self-reproaches 
of  Augustine  when  he  refers  again  and  again  to  the 
failings  of  his  own  conduct  in  the  early  years  which 
he  lays  open  to  us.  Certainly,  we  have  no  reason  to 
doubt  that,  as  he  piteously  declares,  he  showed  himself 
in  unthinking  youth  a  careless  libertine.  Doubtless 
he  yielded,  as  he  persists  in  declaring,  to  the  violent 
passions  so  common  to  the  early  years  of  which  he 
speaks,  surrounded  as  they  were  in  his  case  with 
more  than  common  temptations.  The  African 
Paganism  which  he  witnessed  about  him,  and  from 
which  he  was  not  sheltered  by  the  training  and 
discipline  of  the  Christian  Church,  partook  of  the 
dissoluteness  of  Asia  and  Syria,  from  whence  it 
sprung.  He  was  surrounded  by  the  worship  of 
nature,  of  the  elemental  deities  which  represented 
and  pretended  to  glorify  the  natural  appetites ;  by 
the  worship  of  Belus  and  Astarte,  which  had  long 
lost  among  the  vulgar  herd  of  their  votaries  what- 


St  Augustine.  59 


ever  spiritual  sense  might  have  been  once  attached 
to  it  by  heads  and  hearts  of  the  better  kind. 
Augustine  confesses  that  he  was  led  away  by  carnal 
weakness;  he  stooped  to  sins  of  impurity;  he  con- 
tracted at  a  very  early  age  an  illicit  sexual  connexion ; 
but  even  that  sinful  self-surrender  may  have  protected 
him  from  a  career  of  vulgar  debauchery ;  for  of  none 
such  does  he  accuse  himself,  as  he  surely  would  have 
done  without  disguise  if  his  conscience  had  wit- 
nessed against  him.  No — we  may  be  sure  that  our 
holy  Father  was  not  a  man  to  yield  to  the  grosser 
forms  of  sin;  and  from  the  first  he  strove  against 
his  temptations  by  devoting  himself  to  study,  to  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge,  to  the  full  employment  of 
his  mind  and  ever-active  imagination.  He  still 
longs  for  the  food  meet  for  his  soul.  He  yearns  for 
wisdom;  but  as  yet  it  is  the  wisdom  of  this  world 
only  which  he  seeks  in  divers  studies,  but  especially 
in  the  study  of  rhetoric,  which  was  the  passport  then, 
as  since,  to  worldly  distinctions  of  many  kinds. 
Nevertheless,  professor  of  rhetoric  though  he  has 
become,  he  is  still  unsatisfied.  He  now  sighs  for 
belief ;  he  requires  a  creed  on  which  to  stay  himself. 
He  looks  about  him;  he  feels  about  him  restlessly; 
but  he  has  not  learnt  to  fix  his  mind  on  any  one 


6o  SL  Augustine. 


thing  with  sufficient  steadiness.  He  is  disappointed, 
as  all  half-seekers  after  a  creed  will  surely  be,  and 
disappointment  in  his  fervid  nature  soon  turns  to 
impatience,  impatience  to  despair.  And  then  he 
plunges  into  worldly  amusements  to  relieve  the  void 
in  his  spiritual  aspirations.  He  frequents  the 
theatre  and  the  circus,  which  in  those  days  could 
only  furnish  fresh  fuel  for  the  passions.  But  his 
nature  is  too  good  to  be  thus  satisfied.  On  the 
contrary,  he  shrinks  with  genuine  horror  from  the 
moral  intoxication  of  the  shows,  of  which  he  has 
given  us  a  notable  account  in  the  case  of  a  com- 
panion who  had  like  himself  experienced  it. 

He  is  speaking  of  his  very  intimate  friend 
Alypius,  who  occupies  a  large  part  of  the  story  of 
his  early  life,  its  yearnings  and  its  struggles.  This 
young  man,  he  tells  us,  had  gone  before  him  to 
study  law  at  Eome,  and  was  there  carried  away  with 
excessive  eagerness  to  the  combats  of  the  gladiators. 
'  For,'  to  quote  the  Confessions,  '  being  utterly  averse 
from,  and  detesting  such  spectacles,  he  met  one  day 
by  chance  certain  of  his  acquaintance  and  fellow- 
students  coming  from  dinner,  and  they  with  a 
familiar  violence  haled  him,  refusing  and  resisting, 
into  the  amphitheatre,  during  the  progress  of  those 


S^.  Atigustine.  6i 


deadly  entertainments.  Again  and  again  did  he 
protest,  "  Though  you  drag  my  body  there,  and  there 
set  me  down,  you  cannot  force  me  to  turn  eyes  or 
mind  upon  those  horrors.  I  shall  then  be  absent 
even  while  I  am  present,  and  so  shall  overcome  both 
you  and  them."  They,  hearing  this,  bore  him  on 
nevertheless,  desiroas  perhaps  to  try  that  very  thing, 
whether  he  could  do  as  he  pretended.  When  they 
had  arrived  and  had  taken  their  places  as  they  could, 
the  whole  place  kindled  with  the  savage  pastime. 
But  he,  closing  the  passages  of  his  eyes,  forbade  his 
mind  to  range  abroad, — and  would  that  he  had 
stopped  his  ears  also !  For  in  the  fight  when  one 
fell,  a  mighty  cry  of  the  whole  people  striking  him 
strongly,  overcome  by  curiosity,  and  prepared  as  it 
were  to  despise  and  rise  superior  to  the  scene  what- 
ever it  might  be,  even  when  disclosed  to  him,  he 
opened  his  eyes,  and  was  at  once  stricken  with  a 
deeper  wound  in  his  soul  than  was  the  other  in  his 
body,  and  he  fell  more  miserably  than  he  on  whose 
fall  that  mighty  noise  was  raised.  .  .  .  For  as  soon  as 
he  saw  that  blood  he  therewith  drank  in  savaseness, 
nor  turned  he  away,  but  fixed  his  eyes  upon  it,  frenzied 
unawares,  and  was  delighted  with  the  wicked  fight, 
intoxicated    with    the   bloody   pastime.     Why   say 


62  S^.  Augustine. 


more?  He  beheld,  he  shouted,  he  caught  fire;  he 
carried  thence  with  him  the  madness  which  should 
goad  him  to  return,  not  with  them  only  who  had 
first  drawn  him  thither,  but  even  before  them, — 
yea,  and  to  draw  in  others.'  How  evidently  genuine 
a  narrative!  How  true  to  our  common  nature  I 
Have  we  not  read  precisely  like  accounts  of  the 
experience  of  countrymen  of  our  own  who  have 
been  enticed  to  witness  the  scenes  of  a  Spanish  bull- 
fight? How  much  might  we  learn  of  the  manners,  the 
thoughts,  the  hearts  of  antiquity,  and  how  like  they 
were  to  our  own  in  all  their  diversity,  had  the  Fathers 
indulged  us  with  a  few  more  such  simple  narratives ! 
How  many  of  their  sermons  might  we  have  spared 
for  them!  And,  lastly,  have  we  not  all  felt  more 
or  less  of  this  common  human  infirmity  in  the 
experience  of  our  own  early  days  at  college  or  else- 
where ?  Do  we  not  begin  to  realize  that  Alypius 
was  one  of  ourselves,  that  the  great  Augustine  him- 
self was  after  all  one  of  om*selves  also? 

Perhaps  this  common  likeness  may  be  brouglit 
even  more  home  to  us  by  another  anecdote  taken 
from  these  candid  Confessions.  The  writer  is  still 
speaking  of  the  sins  of  his  early  youth,  his  sins  of 
impurity,  but  still  more  of  carelessness  and  vanity : 


vSy.  Augustine,  63 


'  And  in  all,'  he  exclaims  solemnly,  '  was  a  mist 
intercepting  from  me,  0  God,  the  brightness  of  Thy 
Truth  ;  and  mine  iniquity  burst  out  from  very  ful- 
ness.' And  he  goes  on  to  make  a  more  special  dis- 
closiu-e.  '  Theft,'  he  says,  '  is  punished  by  Thy  Law, 
0  Lord,  and  the  Law  written  in  men's  hearts,  which 
iniquity  doth  not  efface.  .  .  .  Yet  I  lusted  after 
theft,  and  I  thieved,  not  compelled  by  hunger  or 
poverty ;  for  I  stole  that  of  which  I  had  enough  and 
much  better.  Nor  cared  I  to  enjoy  that  which  I 
stole,  but  took  pleasure  in  the  theft  for  the  very  sin's 
sake,  and  that  only.  A  pear-tree  there  was  hard  by 
our  vineyard,  laden  with  fruit,  tempting  neither  for 
colour  nor  taste.  To  shake  this  and  rob  it,  some 
lewd  fellows  among  us  went  late  one  night,  and  took 
huge  loads,  not  for  eating,  but  to  fling  to  the  very 
hogs  after  merely  tasting  them.  And  this  out  of 
mere  wantonness — to  do  what  we  lusted  to  do,  just 
because  it  was  wrong  to  do  it.     Behold  my  heart, 

0  Grod, — behold  my  heart  which  Thou  hadst  pity 
upon  in  the  bottomless  pit !     Foul  was  the  deed,  and 

1  loved  it ;  I  loved  to  perish  ; — I  loved  mine  own 
fault,  not  seeking  aught  through  shame,  but  simply 
the  very  shame  itself.'  Some  of  my  hearers  may 
remember  to  have  read  in  a  book  now  almost  for- 


64  SL  Augustine. 


gotten,  and  not  undeservedly  so — Kichard  Froude's 
'  Eemains ' — how  bitterly  he  accuses  himself,  and  in  a 
strain  how  like  to  this,  of  having  eaten  a  bit  of  roast 
goose  on  some  occasion  when  he  fancies  he  should 
not  have  so  indulged  himself.  Such  scrupulosity  in 
matters  so  trivial  is  common  enough  among  us,  and 
generally  indicates  not  a  sound  but  a  weakly  con- 
science. It  forms  the  staple  of  many  tender-hearted 
confessions  of  men  who  have  never  risen  above  it ; 
but  in  Augustine  it  was  combined  with,  and  even- 
tually overruled  by  a  stronger  will  and  a  juster 
appreciation  of  the  whole  duty  of  Man.  In  another 
man  it  would  have  been  little  worthy  of  our  atten- 
tion. 

But  the  course  of  our  Saint's  autobiography 
requires  me  to  refer  to  other  charges  which  he 
makes  against  himself,  still  of  a  trifling  and  what  we 
may  surely  call  a  venial  character  ;  and  we  can  only 
regret  that,  if  they  were  worth  recording  at  all,  he 
should  paint  them  in  colours  so  flagrant.  Thus  he 
cries  and  groans  again,  still  speaking  of  his  youthful 
errors : — '  Stage  plays  also  carried  me  away,  full  of 
images  of  my  own  miseries  and  of  fuel  for  my  fire.' 
Not  that  he  is  denouncing  the  theatre  as  the  hotbed, 
as  it  then  really  was,  of  heathenism  or  licentiousness, 


S^,  Augustine.  65 


but  simply  as  pampering  the  imagination.     '  Why  is 
it,'   he    asks,  'that   man  desires   to   be    made    sad, 
beholding  things  dolefid  and  tragical,  which  yet  he 
would  by  no  means  wish  himself  to  suffer  ?     Yet  he 
desires  to  feel  sorrow  at  them  as  a  spectator  only. 
This  he  makes  his  pleasure ;  but  what  is  this  but  a 
wretched  madness  ?     For  when  he  suffers  in  his  own 
person,  then  indeed  he  calls  it  pain  and  sorrow  ;  but 
when  he  compassionates  others,  then  forsooth  it  is 
pity  or  mercy.     And  what  sort  of  compassion  is  this 
for  feigned  and  scenic  sufferings,  when  the  hearer 
is  not  asked  to  relieve  but  to  grieve  only  ?     And  if 
the  sorrows  of  these  tragic  heroes,  whether  of  history 
or  fiction,  be  so  ill-portrayed  that  he  is  not  moved 
to  tears,  lo !  he  goes  away  dissatisfied ;  but  if  he  be 
moved  to  passion,  he   stays,  he  looks   on  intently, 
he  actually  weeps   for  pleasure.'     Now  this  idea,  so 
obvious  and  commonplace,  which  all  moralists  from 
Horace   downwards    have    lightly  touched    on,  does 
Augustine  continue  to  work  upon  and  exaggerate, 
till  it  seems  in  his  eyes  to  demand  the  intervention 
of  divine  Providence  itself.    '  But  Thy  faithful  mercy 
watched  over  me  from  afar,  while  I  consumed  myself 
with    such    grievous  iniquities,   pursuing   a  profane 
curiosity  even  to  the  brink  of  the  treacherous  abyss 

F 


66  SL  Augustine. 


and  the  beguiling  service  of  devils.'  His  language, 
thus  inflamed,  becomes  yet  darker  and  more  myste- 
rious ;  he  would  lead  us  to  imagine  that  there  is  yet 
some  worse  sin  in  the  background,  of  which,  peni- 
tent as  he  is,  he  cannot  bring  himself  to  cleanse  his 
breast  by  confession.  '  I  dared,'  he  says,  '  even  while 
Thy  solemnities  were  being  celebrated  within  Thine 
own  church,  to  devise  and  compass  a  business  de- 
serving death  for  its  fruits,  for  which  Thou  scourgedst 
me  with  grievous  punishments,  though  as  nothing  to 
my  fault, — 0  Thou,  my  exceeding  Mercy,  my  God, 
my  Eefuge  from  these  terrible  destroyers  ! '  ^ 

What,  then,  was  this  dreadful  business,  deserving 
death  for  its  fruits — death  in  this  world,  or  death 
in  the  world  to  come  ?  What  the  grievous  punish- 
ments with  which  it  was  visited,  though  as  nothing 
in  comparison  with  its  enormity  ?  Can  it  be  that 
his  mind  misgave  him  at  the  last,  and  that  these  his 
solemn  confessions  are  no  full  confessions  after  all — 
that  he  has  not  withheld  from  us  his  lighter  errors, 
but  has  kept  the  veil  drawn  over  what  was  really 
grave,  really  heinous  ?     All,  I  think,  that  we  can 

I  My  rendering-  of  the  language  of  the  Confessions  is  taken 
substantially  from  a  translation  published  by  James  Parker  and 
Co-  of  Oxford. 


S/.  Atigustme. 


further  gather  from  the  imperfect  disclosure  is  that, 
in  addition  to  the  instances  of  infirmity  already  men- 
tioned, the  good  man  had  indulged  in  the  vanity  of 
seeking  mere  human  wisdom,  mere  human  applause, 
the  vanity  of  taking  pleasure  in  his  success  in  the 
schools,  in  which  he  became  a  favourite  declaimer. 
He  was  perhaps  the  spoilt  child  of  fashion  ;  he  was 
flattered  and  intoxicated  by  the  praises  of  the  worth- 
less, and  even  the  reprobate.  '  And  now,'  he  says, '  I 
was  chief  in  the  school  of  Rhetoric,  whereat  I  rejoiced 
proudly,  and  swelled  with  arrogance,  though — Lord, 
thou  knowest — far  more  quiet,  and  far  removed  from 
those  subverters  among  whom  I  lived,  ashamed, 
shameless  as  I  was,  that  I  was  not  altogether  like 
unto  them.  With  them  I  lived,  and  was  sometimes 
delighted  with  their  friendship,  whose  doings  I  did 
ever  abhor  ;  for  nothing  can  be  liker  the  very  deeds 
of  devils  than  theirs  were.'  We  get,  indeed,  from 
these  ejaculations  a  very  obscure  idea  of  who  these 
subverters  were.  We  may  suppose  that  they  were 
the  captious  Sophists  of  the  schools,  at  no  time  more 
abounding,  who  took  the  better  or  the  worse  side 
at  random,  and  amused  themselves  with  perverting 
common  sense  and  subverting  healthy  principles ; 
such  persons  as  we  have  all  met  and  had  to  deal  with 

F   2 


68  kS*/.  Augustifte. 


in  our  own  experience,  and  who  have  soon  found  their 
just  level  in  the  estimation  of  most  of  us.  Surely  it 
has  been  no  heinous  sin  if  we  from  time  to  time 
have  been  blinded  by  their  sophistries,  have  been 
tickled  by  their  compliments,  or  have  trifled  with 
their  seductions.  May  we  not  hope,  then,  that, 
despite  of  these  vehement  self-denunciations,  the 
sins  even  of  this  youthful  libertine  might  be  blotted 
out  by  the  tears  of  the  Kecording  Angel  ? 

In  studying  the  Confessions  of  the  holy  Augus- 
tine, as  well  as  of  many  other  good  men  who  have 
taken  them  for  their  model,  we  must  always  guard 
against  the  morbid  exaggerations  of  a  sensitive 
nature,  to  countenance  which  the  Word  of  Grod  itself, 
misread  or  misinterpreted,  is  too  often  perverted. 
But,  not  to  trespass  here  on  the  functions  of  the 
pulpit,  I  will  rather  pause  to  point  out  the  charac- 
teristic difference  between  the  confessions  of  the 
pious  Christian,  be  he  an  Augustine,  a  Francois  de 
Sales,  a  Cowper,  or  a  Newton,  and  those  of  the  most 
devout  of  the  Pagans  before  them,  of  such  a  good 
and  candid  self-examiner  as  the  Emperor  Marcus 
Antoninus.  We  have  in  the  Meditations  of  this 
Pagan  saint  the  nearest  counterpart  to  the  Christian 
effusions  before  us.    The  writers  of  the  one  book  and 


6V.  Augustine,  69 


of  the  other  were  perhaps  equally  sincere,  equally 
devout.  Both  were  equally  impressed  with  a  sense 
of  moral  duty;  both  equally  acknowledged  their 
responsibility  to  a  higher  spiritual  Power  ;  Augustine 
saw  indeed  a  Being  where  Antoninus  could  only 
recognise  a  Principle.  Augustine  had  a  clearer 
apprehension  of  consequences  to  follow  on  his  dis- 
charging or  failing  to  discharge  the  duties  he  acknow- 
ledged. Antoninus  knew  neither  of  the  reward  nor 
the  punishment,  even  while  the  duty  was  not  the 
less  present  to  his  understanding.  Accordingly,  that 
which  in  the  mind  of  the  Christian  is  a  sin,  appears 
to  the  Pagan  a  defect  or  an  infirmity.  The  one 
repents,  the  other  grieves  ;  the  one  calls  on  his  Grod 
to  strengthen  and  amend  him,  the  other  falls  back 
upon  his  own  sense  and  courage,  and  only  resolves 
to  reform  himself.  Augustine  falls  on  his  knees  and 
prays  for  pardon  through  the  unmerited  mercy  of  a 
reconciled  Saviour.  Antoninus  looks  only  to  satisfy 
his  own  sense  of  what  is  just  and  fitting.  If  this  he 
cannot  do — and  he  painfully  feels  that  he  cannot — he 
will  do  his  best ;  and  he  does  his  best.  He  looks 
neither  with  hope  nor  fear  to  the  future,  if  there  be 
a  future ;  but  his  serenity — let  us  not  call  it  apathy, 
though  the  word  bears  the  stamp  of  Zeno — is  hardly 


70  S^.  Augustine. 


ruffled  by  the  crash  of  the  world  around  him.  The 
Eoman  Empire  is  about  to  fall  to  pieces  ;  the  Stoic 
philosopher  will  work  for  it  and  fight  for  it,  but  if  it 
must  fall,  let  it  do  so  !  The  Empire  did  fall  to 
pieces,  in  the  very  sight  of  Augustine ;  we  shall  see 
hereafter  what  the  Christian  Saint  thought  of  its 
fall,  and  the  spiritual  application  he  made  of  it. 

So  imperfect  was  the  spiritual  training  of  the 
most  spiritual  among  the  Pagans !  Yet  it  was 
through  the  teaching  of  the  Grreeks — it  was  from  the 
schools  of  the  Piatonists  and  the  Stoics — that  many 
of  the  Christian  Fathers  were  first  led  to  the  source 
of  true  religion.  Alas  !  that  Antoninus  should  have 
wilfully  rejected  the  hand  which  was  held  out  to  him 
from  Heaven,  when  he  scorned  the  witness  of  the 
Christians  who  were  martyred  almost  in  his  presence  ! 
Augustine,  we  may  say  with  pride,  took  the  better 
part.  This  Christian  Saint  was  first  led  to  Christ 
by  the  study  of  a  Pagan  scripture,  and  he  freely 
acknowledges  the  obligation.  The  perusal  of  Cicero's 
Hortensius,  on  which  he  lighted  in  a  season  of  per- 
sonal affliction  on  the  death  of  a  friend,  kindled  his 
love  of  Truth  ;  for  it  spoke  to  him  after  the  manner 
of  the  Academics,  in  genial  accents,  of  God  and  a 
future  life.     Of  course,  his  progress  in  the  enquiries 


SL  Augicstme.  71 


which  followed  was  slow  and  unsteady.  It  could  not 
be  otherwise.  He  could  not  grasp  divine  Truth  in 
its  highest  form  all  at  once.  He  confesses  that  at 
this  crisis  the  reading  of  Grod's  own  Word,  with 
which  his  heart  had  never  been  brought  in  contact, 
made  little  impression  on  him.  He  felt  some  interest 
in  the  simplicity  of  its  language,  some  admiration 
for  it,  and  for  the  directness  of  its  appeals  to  the 
feelings  and  the  understanding.  But  his  heart  was 
not  to  be  so  soon  touched ;  the  eye  of  the  spirit  was 
not  yet  opened,  or  ratlier  it  glanced  at  first  obliquely 
from  the  Truth  itself  to  the  false  shadows  of  the 
Truth  with  which  the  way  of  religious  enquiry  is  ever 
beset.  If  his  career  was  diverted  from  the  o^rosser 
illusions  of  the  senses,  it  fell  upon  the  more  subtle 
distractions  of  heresy  and  knowledge  falsely  so 
called. 

The  record  of  this  fervent  Christian's  specula- 
tions should  be  deeply  interesting  and  instructive  to 
all  who  in  an  age  of  intellectual  training  are  called 
on  to  pursue  the  studies  upon  which  an  intelligent 
belief  must  ultimately  rest.  '  This  book  '  (the  Hor- 
tensius),  he  says,  'diverted  my  affection  and  turned 
my  prayers  from  the  desire  of  worldly  distinction,  of 
distinction  especially  in  worldly  knowledge,  to  Thine 


72  6^/.  Augustine. 


own  self,  0  Lord  I  Every  vain  hope  became  at  once 
worthless  to  me,  and  I  longed  with  incredible  ardour 
for  a  new  life  of  wisdom ;  and  now  T  began  to  rise 
up  that  I  might  return  unto  Thee.  For  it  was 
not  to  sharpen  my  tongue  that  I  employed  that 
book  of  Cicero ;  nor  did  it  infuse  into  me  its  style, 
but  its  matter.  How  did  I  then  burn  to  remount 
from  earthly  things  unto  Thee !  Nor  knew  I 
what  Thou  wouldst  do  with  me;  for  with  Thee  is 
wisdom.  And  since  at  that  time  apostolic  Scrip- 
ture had  not  yet  been  made  known  to  me,  I 
was  delighted  with  that  exhortation  to  philo- 
sophy so  far  only,  that  I  was  thereby  roused  and 
inflamed  to  love,  seek,  and  obtain,  not  this  or  that 
opinion,  but  wisdom  itself  whatsoever  it  were.  And 
this  alone  checked  me,  thus  enkindled,  that  the 
name  of  Christ  was  not  in  the  book.  For  this  name, 
according  to  Thy  mercy,  0  my  Lord,  this  name  of 
my  Saviour  thy  Son  had  my  tender  heart,  even  with 
my  mother's  milk,  devoutly  drunk  in  and  deeply 
treasured  ;  and  whatsoever  was  without  that  name, 
though  never  so  learned,  polished,  or  true,  took  not 
entire  hold  of  me.'  For  such  was  the  simple  ele- 
ment of  religion  which  the  young  Augustine  had 
received  from  his  mother,  herself  but  an  uninstructed 


SL  Augustine.  ']t^ 


believer ;  such  was  the  superficial  training  of  multi- 
tudes in  those  days  of  rudimentary  Christianity. 
And  is  not  such  the  slender  training  of  multitudes 
even  in  our  own  day,  after  all  the  Christian  ages  that 
have  passed  ?  Yet,  as  we  see,  it  was  something,  and 
it  carried  with  it  the  capacity  for  fuller  development, 
but  not  all  at  once. 

'  I  resolved  then,'  he  continues,  '  to  bend  my 
mind  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  that  I  might  see  what 
they  really  were,.  And,  lo  !  I  discover  a  thing  not 
understood  of  the  proud,  not  laid  open  to  children, 
lowly  in  its  access,  in  its  recesses  lofty  and  veiled 
with  mysteries ;  and  I  was  not  such  an  one  as  could 
enter  into  it,  nor  stoop  my  neck  to  follow  its  leading. 
For  not  as  I  now  speak  did  I  then  feel  when  I  first 
turned  to  those  Scriptures ;  but  their  style  seemed 
to  me  unworthy  to  be  compared  with  the  stateliness 
of  Tully ;  for  my  swelling  pride  shrunk  from  their 
holiness,  nor  could  my  sharp  wit  pierce  to  the 
interior  thereof.  ,  .  .  So  it  was  that  I  fell  among 
men  proudly  doting,  exceeding  carnal,  trifling,  and 
prating,  in  whose  mouth  were  the  snares  of  the  devil, 
limed  only  with  the  syllables  of  Thy  name,  0  Father, 
and  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  the  Holy  Grhost 
the  Paraclete.     These    names  departed  not  out  of 


74  ^^'  AugtLstine. 


their  mouths,  but  so  far  forth  as  the  sound  only,  for 
their  hearts  were  void  of  truth.  Yet  they  cried  out. 
Truth,  Truth  !  and  discoursed  niuch  thereof  in  my 
ears.  But  they  spake  falsehood  not  of  Thee  only, 
who  truly  art  the  Truth,  but  even  of  those  ele- 
ments of  this  world  which  are  Thy  creatures.  Thus 
to  one  hungering  after  Thee  they  served  up  the  sun 
and  moon'  (meaning  objects  of  elemental  worship), 
'  beautiful  works  of  Thine,  but  yet  Thy  ivorks  only, 
not  Thine  own  self ;  no,  nor  Thy  chief  works.  For 
Thy  spiritual  works  are  superior  to  the  material, 
celestial  though  these  too  be  and  brilliant.  But  I 
was  hungering  and  thirsting  after  Thee,  Thine  ownself 
— the  Truth — in  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning.' 

The  vague  speculations  on  divine  things  into 
which  the  earnest  enquirer  was  thus  led  could  not 
fail  to  group,  to  crystallise  themselves,  as  it  were,  in 
some  formal  system  of  belief.  The  time  was  favour- 
able to  the  rapid  generation  of  crude  opinion  on 
spiritual  matters.  The  old  mythology  of  the  Pagan 
world  was  dying  or  even  dead  ;  but  the  field  it  had 
quitted,  the  insatiable  void  in  the  human  heart 
which  demands  a  belief  of  some  sort,  had  given  birth 
to  many  theories,  each  of  which  held  out  to  some,  at 


S^.  Azigustine.  75 


some  times,  bright  hopes  of  satisfaction.  The  reli- 
gious tendencies  of  the  day  looked  to  some  means  of 
reconciliation  between  the  elements  of  ancient  belief 
and  of  prevailing  scepticism.  Heresy,  or  the  wilful 
handling  of  Divine  Scripture,  exercised  great  powers 
of  seduction  over  the  hearts  of  really  earnest  thinkers 
at  a  period  when  ideas  were  thus  confused  and  inter- 
mingled. Heresy  became  the  ally  and  interpreter 
of  Paganism.  She  soothed  the  pride  of  philosophy 
in  substituting  salvation  through  so-called  knowledge^ 
or  the  inner  lig'ht,  for  salvation  through  conversion 
and  fcelf-humiliation.  Thus  it  was  that  the  G-nostic 
heresy  pretended  to  be  the  science  of  religion. 
Looking  into  human  nature  as  discovered  to  us  by 
experience,  it  undertook  to  demonstrate  the  truths 
of  religion  by  their  conformity  thereto.  Manicheism, 
a  form  of  Grnosticism  with  which  the  Christian 
Fathers  maintained  the  closest  struggle,  combined 
the  Fire-worship  of  Persia  with  some  fragments  of 
the  Grospel  only,  and  those  picked  out  arbitrarily 
from  the  Divine  Scriptures,  It  conceived  of  the 
world  as  a  kingdom  of  light  stretched  alongside  of 
a  conterminous  realm  of  darkness.  Between  these 
two  spheres  of  the  universe  there  raged  eternal  war- 
fare.   Such  was  the  general  theory  of  the  Manicheans, 


76  SL  Augustine. 


and  they  went  on  further  to  explain  it  thus  : — Dark- 
ness, assisted  by  the  agency  of  demons,  has  invaded 
the  region  of  light,  and  man  is  ever  subject  to  their 
contending  influence.  Christ  and  the  Paraclete  are 
come  down  from  the  Sun  to  teach  us  how  to  reject 
the  element  of  darkness.  This  element  is  contained 
in  matter  ;  matter  is  darkness  ;  matter  is  evil  and 
the  enemy  of  the  soul ;  the  body  must  be  fortified 
against  it,  must  be  spiritualised  by  discipline,  by 
mortification  and  ascetic  torments.  But  the  reaction 
from  such  restraints  to  corruption  and  debauchery 
has  been  ever  found  to  be  inevitable.  Such  was  the 
observation  of  Augustine  himself,  who  was  for  a  time 
ensnared  by  the  pretensions  of  this  heresy ;  such  was 
no  doubt  the  personal  experience  of  the  many  Chris- 
tian believers  who  fell  under  the  same  delusion.  It 
is  worth  observing  that  the  best  of  the  Pagan  Moral- 
ists entertained  the  same  distrust  of  JNIanicheism  as 
the  Christian  Fathers. 

From  JNIanicheism  Augustine  wandered  to  the 
latest  of  the  Pagan  philosophies,  which  bore  the  title 
of  the  New  Platonism,  This  was  in  fact  no  other 
than  a  desperate  attempt  of  the  ancient  Hellenism 
to  revive  itself  by  assimilation  with  the  mysticism 
of   India.      It   made    no   pretence   of  representing 


S^.  Augustine.  77 


Christianity  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  attacked  it ;  never- 
theless it  did  not  fail,  while  attacking,  to  borrow  no 
little  from  it.  The  New  Platonism  spoke  not  less 
fervently  than  the  Gospel  of  union  with  God ;  but 
by  this  union  with  the  Divine  it  meant  absorption 
into  it ;  it  pointed  not  to  a  conscious  independent 
co-existence  with  the  Deity,  a  life  hid  with  Christ  in 
God,  as  the  Christian  might  say,  but  to  the  annihila- 
tion of  the  creature  in  his  contemplation  of  the 
Creator,  the  Supreme  All  in  All.  It  rejected  a  future 
life  altogether  in  any  consistent  sense  of  the  word. 
The  Pantheism  of  the  Greeks  thus  manipulated 
becomes  the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhists.  It  implies 
inevitably  the  destruction  of  all  individual  responsi- 
bility or  duty.  With  this  system,  which  has  no 
doubt  its  seductive  side,  Augustine  did  for  a  moment 
dally ;  but  the  fibre  of  his  conscience,  so  to  say,  was 
too  tough  to  be  long  relaxed  by  it.  We  may  con- 
ceive that  the  painful  study  of  it,  and  the  struggle 
with  it,  imparted  to  him  both  vigour  and  knowledge. 
By  meditation  on  the  Logos  of  Philo  and  Plotinus, 
an  impersonal  abstraction  of  divine  Truth  and  Wis- 
dom, he  raised  himself  to  a  higher  level  of  spiritual 
thought ;  he  acknowledged  the  need  of  a  Personal 
Word,    an   incarnate   representative    of  the  Divine 


78  SL  Atigusiine, 


nature,  God  of  God,  such  as  he  might  now  remember 
to  have  heard  of  from  his  mother's  lips — the  Christ 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Such  were  the  various  ideas 
which  met  or  coursed  one  another  in  the  depths  of 
his  inmost  soul  during  the  long  period  of  his  anxious 
speculations.  At  one  time  the  death  of  a  Christian 
friend,  throughout  the  whole  period  the  unceasing 
prayers  of  his  mother,  operated  towards  the  final 
conversion  which  was  still  in  store  for  him. 

But  while  he  was  still  wandering  in  the  mazes 
of  the  Alexandrian  school  of  Platonism  he  continued 
to  devote  himself  to  the  rhetorical  exercises  which  he 
now  regarded  as  the  business  of  his  life,  and  the 
more  so  as  he  became  more  and  more  dissatisfied 
with  his  spiritual  speculations.  He  resolved  to  quit 
his  home  at  Carthage,  and  throw  himself  into  the 
larger  theatre  of  Eome.  His  dream  of  glory  was 
here  suddenly  cut  short.  It  required  only  the  ordi- 
nary accident  of  a  severe  illness  to  teach  him  sub- 
mission to  the  overruling  hand  of  Providence.  His 
desolate  mother,  whom  he  had  left  behind,  speedily 
rejoined  him;  and,  when  he  had  recovered,  accom- 
panied him  to  a  quieter,  but  still  an  important,  post 
as  a  teacher  at  Milan.  There  it  was  tliat  he  met 
with  St.  Ambrose,  then  at  the  height  of  his  autho- 


S^.  Augustine.  79 


rity  and  influence.  Struck  with  the  erudition,  the 
eloquence,  the  fame  of  the  great  preacher,  he  was 
constant  in  hearing,  and  cultivating  acquaintance 
with  him.  He  felt  perhaps  for  the  first  time  the 
grandeur  of  the  Divine  Scriptures  in  the  homage 
paid  them  by  a  man  so  eminent,  who  spake  not  from 
the  level  of  his  own  human  heart,  but  from  the  van- 
tage ground  of  the  Word  written  for  him,  expound- 
ing Grod's  declared  will,  line  by  line,  precept  upon 
precept.  As  he  turned  himself  to  the  Bible,  and 
studied  it  more  earnestly,  he  learnt  to  regard  the 
Bishop  as  its  appointed  interpreter,  the  Church  of 
which  he  was  a  bishop  as  its  appointed  guardian. 

To  Ambrose  Monica  disclosed  her  anxiety  for  her 
erring  and  wilful  offspring,  and  entreated  him  to 
lend  his  assistance,  and  undertake  the  conversion  of 
so  hopeful  a  scholar.  But  Ambrose  hesitated,  it 
seems,  to  put  himself  forward.  He  judged  perhaps 
that  a  ripe  conversion  should  be  the  work  of  the 
seeker  himself.  Nevertheless,  he  did  not  send  the 
mother  away  without  words  of  comfort :  '  Be  sure,' 
he  whispered,  '  that  the  child  of  so  many  prayers 
will  never  be  a  castaway.'  Augustine  continued 
long  to  hearken,  to  study,  and  to  reflect.  His  heart 
was  touched,  his  judgment  was  perhaps   convinced, 


8o  SL  Augttstine. 


while  his  pride  still  withheld  him  from  yielding. 
His  tender  conscience  still  presented  to  him  the 
pride  of  life  in  its  brightest  colours,  and  asked  him 
importunately : — could  he  make  up  his  mind,  so 
young  and  lusty  as  he  was,  to  abjure  and  overcome 
it?  His  difficulties  were  still  moral  rather  than 
intellectual.  But  a  voice  within  him,  which  he 
took  for  a  Divine  message,  repeated  in  his  ears  the 
stirring  cry,  '  Take  and  read,  take  and  read^  and 
he  still  constantly  studied  the  Scriptures,  till  his 
mind  became  finally  resolved  on  meeting  with  the 
words  of  the  Apostle,  '  Not  in  rioting  and  drunken- 
ness, not  in  chambering  and  wantonness,  not  in 
strife  and  envying.  But  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfil 
the  lusts  thereof.'  'No  further  would  I  read,'  he 
says,  '  nor  needed  I,  for  instantly,  this  sentence 
ended,  a  serene  light  was  shed  in  my  heart,  and  all 
darkness  of  doubt  vanished  from  me.' 

Thus  was  the  holy  Augustine  brought  to  Christ. 
It  was  not  of  his  own  will,  but  of  the  grace  of  God. 
Often,  as  he  says,  had  he  tried  the  power  of  his  own 
will.  Many  things  had  he  willed  to  do,  and  he  was 
able  to  do  them.  Many  things  had  he  willed  not  to 
do,  and  he  found  himself  able  to  refrain  from  them  ; 


6'/.  Augustine,  8i 

but  this  one  thing  was  not  in  his  power ;  he  could 
not  will  to  believe,  and  believe  accordingly ;  he 
could  not  will  to  subdue  the  inherent  evil  nature, 
and  therewith  effect  the  victory  over  his  instincts. 
'  More  easily,'  he  says,  '  did  my  body  obey  the 
weakest  willing  of  my  soul  in  moving  my  limbs  at 
its  nod,  than  did  my  soul  obey  itself  in  accomplish- 
ing this  its  momentous  will  by  willing  only.'  It  was 
by  grace,  he  would  infer,  that  he  was  converted ;  by 
grace  he  was  saved,  as  manifestly  as  Saul  on  his 
journey  to  Damascus.  I  wish  you  to  note  these  steps 
in  the  new  believer's  spiritual  course,  and  the  special 
means  by  which  he  confessed  that  he  was  directed, 
inasmuch  as  the  effects  most  proper  to  them  will 
appear  presently,  when  we  consider  the  main  lines  of 
his  theological  teaching. 

But  to  continue  first  with  the  narrative  before  us. 
As  soon  as  the  call  was  thus  divinely  given, '  putting 
my  finger  or  some  other  mark,'  as  he  says,  '  in  the 
place,  I  shut  the  volume,  and  with  a  calmed  coun- 
tenance made  it  known  to  my  friend  Alypius.  He 
asked  me  what  I  had  read :  I  pointed  out  to  him 
the  passage,  and  he  went  on  to  look  even  further 
than  I  had  pointed,  and  I  knew  not  what  was  coming. 
But  these  were  the  words  that  actually  followed: 

G 


82  S^.  Augustine. 

'^  Him  that  is  weak  in  the  faith  receive ; "  these  words 
he  applied  directly  to  himself,  and  by  this  admonition 
was  he  strengthened ;  .  .  .  and  so,  with  no  anxious 
delay,  he  joined  me.  Thence  we  go  in  to  my  mother  ; 
we  tell  her ;  we  relate  in  order  how  it  all  took  place  ; 
she  leapt  for  joy  and  blessed  Thee,  0  God,  "  who  art 
able  to  do  above  all  that  we  ask  or  think,"  for  she 
perceived  that  Thou,  Grod,  hadst  given  her  more 
for  me  than  she  had  been  ever  wont  to  beg  by  her 
pitiful  and  most  sorrowful  groanings.' 

The  records  of  the  holy  life  which  followed  are 
slender.  Augustine's  practical  career  was  henceforth 
uneventful,  though  every  day  of  it  was  given  to  the 
good  works  of  preaching  and  teaching.  He  first  re- 
tired for  a  time  to  prepare  himself  for  baptism,  and 
received  his  Christian  initiation  together  with  the 
son  of  his  illicit  union — Adeodatus,  or  Grod's  gift,  as 
he  had  wantonly  named  him — who  died  however,  as 
did  also  his  friend  Alypius,  not  long  after.  From 
Milan  and  Eome,  in  which  he  had  already  lost  his 
former  interest,  he  now  returned  to  Africa ;  but  his 
good  mother  died,  no  doubt  in  the  fulness  of  her  joy, 
before  he  embarked  at  Ostia.  Arrived  in  Africa  his 
first  wish  was  to  seek  solitude,  and  devote  himself 
wholly   to    pious    meditation,    like    the    converted 


SL  Aiigiistine.  %^ 


Apostle  before  him,  like  so  many  genuine  converts  to 
the  Faith  at  that  time,  and  in  all  time  succeeding. 
Converted  to  the  faith  and  church  of  Christ  he  still 
felt  that  the  visible  Church  on  earth  fell  far  short  of 
the  mark  of  her  high  calling,  and  it  was  some  time 
before  he  could  be  content  to  overlook  her  deficien- 
cies, and  accept  the  duty  of  living  on  to  amend  and 
purify  her.  Thus  he  passed  some  years  at  his  native 
place,  gradually  emerging  by  the  repute  of  his 
writings  from  the  obscurity  to  which  he  had  devoted 
himself.  Making  by  chance  a  visit  to  Hippo,  a 
small  city  on  the  coast,  the  modern  Bona,  he  suf- 
fered himself  to  be  ordained  there  to  the  priesthood 
by  the  bishop  Valerius,  at  whose  death,  which  shortly 
followed,  the  congregation  insisted  on  choosing  him 
for  their  chief  pastor.  Augustine  became  Bishop  of 
Hippo,  and  there  he  resided  for  the  most  part  to  the 
end  of  his  life,  conferring  upon  the  place  a  notoriety 
in  ecclesiastical  history  which  it  would  not  have 
obtained  otherwise.  At  Hippo  it  is  supposed  that  he 
was  buried ;  and  when  the  modern  Bona  fell,  some  years 
ago,  into  the  hands  of  the  French,  the  very  spot  of 
his  interment  was  said  to  be  discovered,  and  it  is  pro- 
posed, I  am  told,  to  erect  a  cathedral  church  upon  it.^ 
>  A  tomb  of  Augustine  is  also  shown  at  Pavia  ;  the  sculptures 

G  2 


84  S^.  Augustine, 


From  the  year  395,  when  he  became  a  Bishop,  to 
his  death  in  429,  Augustine  maintained  by  the  merit 
of  his  teaching  and  preaching  the  most  authoritative 
position  throughout  the  Western  Church.  His  in- 
fluence has  been  often  characterised  as  a  moral 
papacy,  freely  accorded  him  by  Christian  believers, 
wherever  at  least  his  writings  in  the  Latin  tongue 
could  be  appreciated.  He  took  indeed  no  practical 
part  in  the  government  of  the  Church  beyond  the 
narrow  limits  of  his  own  diocese  in  a  corner  of 
Christendom ;  but  by  his  theological  works  our 
indefatigable  divine  ruled  the  Church  universal. 
He  discussed  and  defined  perhaps  every  article  of  the 
Faith.  The  questions  then  principally  in  debate — 
the  same,  we  may  say,  without  meaning  to  be  satiri- 
cal, which  have  been  more  or  less  explicitly  in  debate 
ever  since — were  three,  which  we  may  summarise  by 
the  names  of  the  Arian,  the  Donatist,  and  the  Pela- 
gian. Upon  each  of  these  I  will  now  say  a  few 
words  only,  simply  to  explain  the  position  which  our 
great  Doctor  took  in  regard  to  each  of  them,  and  to 
show  how  his  position  was  in  each  case  actually  based 

with  which  it  is  adorned,  consisting  of  more  than  three  hundred 
figures,  is  a  work  of  the  fourteenth  century  ;  nor,  it  seems,  is  any 
credit  due  to  the  tradition  that  it  incloses  the  Saint's  actual 
remains.     See  Valery,  Voyages  en  Italic,  i.  215. 


vSy.  Augustine.  85 


upon  his  own  personal  experience,  upon  the  expe- 
rience gained  by  his  own  moral  and  spiritual  triab. 
The  theology  of  Augustine  is  truly  a  philosophy  of 
human  nature  taught  by  a  personal  example. 

First,  the  Arian  hypothesis,  speaking  broadly 
and  passing  over  its  subtler  distinctions,  implied  the 
entire  inferiority  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
divine  though  they  were,  to  the  one  Supreme  Father. 
The  discussion  of  this  famous  hypothesis  occupies  the 
foreground  in  the  theology  of  the  Nicene  period. 
To  this  discussion  everything  else  gives  way.  It 
results  in  a  sudden,  a  violent,  a  world-wide  schism, 
a  long  but  fortunately  not  a  permanent  one.  The 
orthodox  Church  might  seem  for  a  time  to  be  utterly 
overwhelmed  by  it.  Coming  at  a  moment  when  the 
conversion,  first  of  the  civilised  and  again  of  the 
barbarian  Pagans,  was  hanging  in  the  balance,  and 
sweeping  these  new  allies  by  millions  into  its  toils, 
it  might  seem  to  human  eyes  to  portend  a  great 
semi-Pagan  reaction  but  slightly  veiled  under  Scrip- 
tural phraseology.  For,  in  fact,  the  principle  of 
Arianism  bordered  immediately  upon  Paganism. 
It  was  the  acknowledgment  of  an  inferior  hierarchy 
of  superhuman  beings,  directed  and  overruled  by  one 
Supreme   Grod.      No   matter   whether   the   inferior 


86  kSV.  Augustine. 


divinities  were  one  or  two  only,  or  whether  they 
were  counted  by  hundreds  and  thousands,  the  prin- 
ciple was  in  either  case  the  same,  the  idea,  namely, 
the  Father  of  All,  the  Author  and  Finisher  of  our 
being,  is  to  be  approached  through  the  ministrations 
of  heroes,  demigods,  or  demons. 

We  may  easily  conceive  that  a  pseudo-Chris- 
tianity of  such  a  lower  type  might  prove  most  accept- 
able to  the  blind  half-reasoning  Pagans  to  whom  it 
was  presented  by  men  who  undertook  to  bring  over 
Greeks  and  Groths  to  the  religious  belief  of  their 
sovereign  lord  the  Emperor  of  Constantinople.  We 
may  ourselves  reverently  believe  that  Providence  de- 
signed to  make  use  of  this  error  for  breaking  in  these 
stiffnecked  people  gradually  to  the  discipline  of  the 
true  faith.  But  theirs  was  now  a  nominal,  not  a  real 
or  genuine  Christianity ;  and  Athanasius  with  others 
after  him,  and  last  in  due  season  Augustine,  were 
raised  up,  first  to  keep  alive  the  protest  against  it, 
and  finally  to  overcome  and  destroy  it.  It  was  by 
Augustine  most  of  all  that  the  Arian  heresy  was 
scotched,  if  not  actually  killed.  The  principle  it 
involves  has  indeed  never  been  extiipated ;  it  is  too 
natural  to  the  human  heart,  too  truly  a  form  of  our 
■Datural  Paganism,  to  be  ever  wholly  extinguished ; 


kS/.  Augustine.  ^^ 


but  after  it  had  done  its  work  in  preparing  the  com- 
plete illumination  of  the  unbelieving  world,  it  was 
suffered  by  God's  providence  to  fall  from  the  high 
station  it  had  occupied  throughout  Christendom  in 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries. 

Now  Augustine  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
escaped  out  of  the  darkness  of  Paganism  into  the 
light  of  a  genuine  Christian  faith.  He  had  passed 
through  the  forms  of  Pagan  misbelief  most  congenial 
to  the  Arian  theory  of  Christiauity.  He  had  found 
by  his  own  experience  how  scientifically  untenable 
were  the  notions  of  the  Gnostics  and  Manicheans, 
with  their  arbitrary  hypotheses  of  successive  incarna- 
tions of  Divinity,  of  successive  seons,  an  endless  and 
objectless  series  of  divine  beings,  all  subordinate  to 
the  one  chief  God,  of  whom  they  are  mere  represen- 
tatives and  shadows.  The  principle  of  Arianism  was 
after  all  identical  with  the  principle  held  equally  by 
the  Pagan,  the  Gnostic,  and  the  Manichee.  Augus- 
tine's acuteness  discovered  the  same  root  of  error  at 
the  bottom  of  all  these  forms  of  misbelief.  And  so 
it  was,  as  I  have  said,  that  he  was  led  by  his  per- 
sonal experience  of  Pagan  blindness  to  trace  the 
shades  of  Christian  heresy  which  still,  after  the  fall 
of  Paganism,  confronted  him  in  the  churches  of  his 


SS  S^.  Augustine. 


own  diocese  and  elsewhere  throughout  Christendom. 
This  then  is  why  our  great  Doctor  wrote  his  palmary 
treatise,  '  De  Trinitate.' 

Again,  Augustine  found  himself  at  the  outset  of 
his  episcopacy  in  controversy  with  the  sect  of  the 
Donatists,  who  may  be  not  unfitly  regarded  as  the 
Puritans  of  the  early  Church.  They  represented  the 
broad  principle  which  has  always  prevailed  more  or 
less  among  believers,  which  had  been  maintained  in 
the  third  century  by  the  Montanists,  and  again  by 
the  Novatianists,  that  the  true  Church  of  Christ  is 
the  assembly  of  really  pious  believers  only,  and 
admits  of  no  merely  nominal  membership  under 
conventional  conditions  of  acceptance.  Thus  neither 
a  nation,  nor  a  province,  nor  a  parish,  they  would 
say,  can  claim  in  strictness  the  title  of  Christian. 
It  is  the  individual  who  is  Christian,  he  who  is  called 
out  of  the  world  of  unbelief,  not  the  community, 
which  even  in  the  purest  of  churches  must  always 
comprehend  many  false  or  nominal  believers,  many 
evildoers  and  practical  unbelievers,  as  tares  among 
the  wheat.  But  from  the  time  when  the  profession 
of  belief  began  to  spread,  still  more  since  the  accept- 
ance of  Christ  by  the  State  had  favoured  the  admis- 
sion into  the  Church   of  a  multitude  of  unworthy 


S^.  AugMstme.  89 


members,  the  Church,  it  might  be  said,  had  lent  itself 
to  a  falsehood  and  a  sin,  the  Church,  popularly  so- 
called,  had  forfeited  its  claim  to  be  the  true  body  of 
Christ.  The  true  believer^  the  genuine  Catholic,  was 
called  upon  to  come  out  from  it,  to  renounce  it  with 
all  its  works,  to  set  up  a  true  church  in  his  own  bosom, 
and  communicate  as  a  fellow-Christian  with  those 
only  who  had  made  the  same  discovery  of  its  error 
as  himself,  and  had  made  the  sacrifice  together  with 
him  of  its  pretended  blessings.  Now  in  the  time 
of  the  Diocletian  persecution  some  of  the  weaker 
brethren  had  been  induced  to  surrender  their  copies 
of  the  Scriptures  at  the  demand  of  the  Pagan 
authorities.  Some  persons  of  name  and  position 
among  the  believers,  some  bishops  even  in  Numidia, 
had  saved  their  lives  by  this  discreditable  weakness. 
Such  men  were  noted,  shunned,  and  vilified  by  their 
braver  or  perhaps  more  fortunate  brethren,  who  had 
escaped  without  being  reduced  to  make  any  such 
unworthy  compliances.  A  great  cry  was  raised  against 
them;  vehement  demand  was  made  for  their  excom- 
munication. The  Church  in  Africa  became  sorely 
agitated;  but  at  last  it  was  decided  that  their 
contrition  should  be  accepted,  and  they  should  there- 
upon be  admitted  as  before  to  the  privileges  of  the 


90  S^.  Augtistine. 


Christian  professioD.  Still  a  minority  at  least  of 
rigorists,  or  Puritans,  as  we  might  call  them,  pro- 
tested loudly  against  this  indulgence.  The  Dona- 
tists,  so  called  from  their  leader,  declared  that  the 
Church  had  denied  its  Lord,  and  compromised  its 
orthodoxy ;  and  they  proceeded,  upon  this  foundation 
alone,  to  constitute  a  new  Church  which,  ever  mind- 
ful of  its  point  of  starting,  should  require  personal 
holiness  as  the  one  specific  condition  of  church- 
membership.  So  firmly  indeed  was  the  principle 
of  Episcopacy  established  that  no  occasion  was  taken 
for  renouncing  or  modifying  this  primitive  insti- 
tution. Puritans  though  they  were,  the  Donatists 
were  not  Presbyterians.  Our  modern  Puritans,  it 
will  be  remembered,  were  not  at  first  voluntarily 
anti-prelatical.  These  separatists  set  up  a  rival  epis- 
copal church  in  Africa ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  century, 
when  Augustine  came  in  contact  with  them,  they  are 
said  to  have  numbeied  in  their  corner  of  the  Empire 
as  many  as  three  hundred  prelates. 

Of  the  theological  aspects  of  the  question  between 
the  combatants  I  will  only  say  that  the  Donatists 
were  plainly  extravagant  in  -demanding  absolute 
holiness  of  every  professing  member  of  the  visible 
Church  under  pain  of  exclusion  from  its  communion. 


SL  Augtistine.  91 


Of  such  a  qualification  human  eyes  can  be  but  im- 
perfect judges.  Yet  we  cannot  say  that  they  erred 
in  making  the  condition  of  admission  a  serious 
reality.  The  Church  visible  upon  earth  must  be,  no 
doubt,  a  community,  if  not  of  actual  saints,  at  least 
of  such  as  are  bent  upon  attaining  to  sanctification. 
From  the  first  the  Church  has  admitted  daily  not 
such  as  were,  but  '  such  as  should  he  saved,'  or  were 
engaged  in  the  process  of  working  out  their  salvation. 
She  has  a  right  to  exact  of  her  members  the  proof 
of  their  actual  belief  and  their  sincere  devotion. 
The  Donatists  carried  this  right  beyond  all  sober 
reason.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Augustine  seems  to 
have  no  less  deceived  himself  when  he  maintained 
that  the  true  mark  of  the  Church  is  simply  the 
visibility  of  its  exterior  constitution,  the  form,  that 
is,  rather  than  the  essence  of  godliness.  The  Dona- 
tists looked,  in  short,  too  exclusively  to  the  sub- 
jective character  of  a  true  saving  faith.  With  their 
narrow,  their  provincial  views,  so  to  call  them,  they 
thought  perhaps  that  this  saving  faith  was  strictly 
confined  to  the  members  of  their  own  special  sect, 
whom  they  had  so  carefully  sifted  from  the  general 
mass.  Augustine,  on  the  other  hand,  regarded  a  saving 
faith  objectively,  as  the  prerogative  of  all  those  who 


92  S^.  Augustine. 


were  formally  included  in  the  historical  church  which 
traced  its  credentials  from  the  Apostles.  Churchmen 
he  considered  as  '  a  peculiar  people,'  just  as  strictly 
as  the  Jewish  people  before  them ;  not  meaning  of 
course  that  all  should  be  saved  who  dwelt  within  the 
Church's  pale,  but  that  none  should  be  saved  who 
strayed  beyond  it.  'No  one,'  he  said,  'can  have 
Christ  for  his  head,  who  is  not  comprehended  in  the 
body  of  Christ.'  Now  this  body,  he  would  continue, 
is  the  orthodox  Church  of  Christ.  To  pretend  that 
the  existence  of  this  Church  depends  on  the  holiness, 
greater  or  less,  of  its  individual  members  is  a  great 
error ;  we  must  fix  our  eyes  solely  on  the  divine  side  of 
the  institution  itself.  The  Church  is  Grod's  own  founda- 
tion ;  it  is  built  upon  the  rock  of  His  immutable 
and  supreme  authority ;  to  make  it  depend  on  the 
characters  of  men  would  be  to  place  it  on  a  moving 
sand.  Accordingly,  while  the  Donatists  placed  holi- 
ness before  catholicity,  Augustine,  on  his  part, 
established  an  inverse  relation  between  the  two 
attributes.^  We  may  conclude  that  the  contest 
between  our  great  Teacher  and  the  Donatists  had,  in 
fact,  two  sides,  each  of  which  presented  one  aspect 

*  I  would  refer  the  reader  more  particularly  to  M.  Pressensfe's 
Essay  in  the  Seances  Historiques  a  Geneve,  p.  292. 


S^.  Augustine.  93 

of  the  Truth.  Augustine  put  forth  his  consummate 
ability  in  the  combat,  and  seems  to  have  discomfited 
his  adversary  at  the  time  in  the  forum  of  the  public 
conscience ;  but  the  principle  in  debate  has  been 
agitated  with  little  cessation  ever  since,  and  assuredly 
it  never  can  be  settled  except  by  admitting  that 
God,  and  Grod  only,  knows  who  are  His  own  for 
saltation  or  reprobation,  and  that  the  limits  of  the 
objective  and  the  subjective  in  spiritual  life  can 
never  be  defined  by  a  mere  human  judgment. 

The  Donatist  sect,  as  I  have  said,  was  Epis- 
copalian, not  Presbyterian.  To  use  our  modern 
phraseology,  it  was  Evangelical  rather  than  Puritan. 
But  the  offence  it  gave  to  the  Ecclesiastical  or  High 
Church  party  was  enhanced  by  its  allying  itself  with 
the  Circumcellions,  the  Independents  or  Eadicals  of 
the  age;  in  which  we  may  note  a  further  concidence 
with  some  features  in  modern  church-history.  These 
Circumcellions  had,  no  doubt,  their  own  social  griev- 
ances ;  perhaps  they  had  some  spiritual  grievances 
also,  but  they  carried  their  resistance  to  law  and 
order,  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical,  beyond  all 
endurable  limits.  They  made  themselves  truly  the 
pests  of  society ;  they  broke  out  here  and  there  into 
open    violence.      To  suppress    them   even   by   force 


94  ^^'  Augustine, 


became  a  political  necessity,  and  the  Donatists 
naturally  suffered  in  general  estimation  from  their 
connection  with  them.  When  the  Church,  at  the 
instigation  of  Augustine,  denounced  the  Donatists  as 
heretics,  and  called  in  the  secular  power  to  impose 
conformity  upon  them,  it  was  no  more  than  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  known  infirmity  of 
human  nature.  But  alas !  an  act  of  conformity  is 
too  closely  allied  to  an  act  of  persecution.  Augustine, 
alas!  was  the  first  persecutor!  The  name  and  au- 
thority of  the  Saint  has  sanctioned  the  first  fatal 
perversion  of  the  text,  '  Compel  them  to  come  in,' 
'which  has  been  the  root  and  ground  of  all  Christian 
persecution  from  that  time  to  the  present. 

I  cannot  excuse,  and  I  confess  I  have  not  the 
heart  to  extenuate  this  grievous  error.  All  I  can  do, 
in  behalf  of  our  pious  Teacher,  is  to  point  out,  by 
reference  to  what  has  been  said  of  his  early  life,  the 
personal  experience  which  seems  to  have  imbued  him 
with  such  horror  of  heretical  pravity.  When,  as  a  late- 
converted  Christian,  he  looked  back  to  the  course  of 
his  varied  struggles,  to  the  aspirations  after  spi- 
ritual truth  which  had  so  long  entranced  him, — ever 
baffled  and  disappointed,  yet  ever  springing  up  again 
with  new  hopes  and  flatteries, — when  he  remembered 


S^.  Augush7ie.  95 


how  he  had  at  first  been  merely  careless  and  regard- 
less of  the  spiritual  life,  listening  perhaps  for  a 
moment  to  his  mother's  prayer,  and  again  letting  it 
drop  unheeded  from  his  memory,  attending  perhaps 
with  greater  interest  to  some  utterance  of  worldly 
wisdom  from  his  father,  and  wonderiog  for  a  moment 
how  the  two  might  be  reconciled ;  how  he  turned 
from  these  to  the  more  attractive  lessons  of  the 
Pagan  Sophists,  which  seemed  to  promise  such  great 
things,  and  were  at  last  found  to  establish  so  little  ; 
how  again,  advancing  further,  he  betook  himself  to 
the  systematic  teaching  of  the  philosophical  schools, 
and  traversed  one  after  another  the  fields  of  thought 
which  the  Platonists,  the  Academics,  the  Alex- 
andrians successively  opened  to  him ;  how,  still 
dissatisfied,  still  eager,  and  more  than  ever  anxious 
to  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  which  still 
eluded  his  pursuit,  he  sought  among  the  Grnostics 
that  combination  of  divine  Kevelation  with  human 
guess-work  which  is  the  root  of  Heresy,  and  still 
found  himself  no  nearer  to  Grod,  or  to  the  Word  of 
God,  by  which  only  He  can  be  approached ;  when 
he  remembered,  I  say,  how  he  had  gone  through  all 
this  course  of  fruitless  enquiry,  in  which  success 
seemed  evQr  more  distant,  yet  ever  more  vital  to 


96  St  Augustine. 


him;  then  he  may  well  have  muttered  to  himself, 
What  have  I  been  doing  all  this  time?  Row 
have  I  been  seeking  Truth?  What  standard  of 
Truth,  what  test  of  Truth  have  I  set  up  for  myself  ? 
Surely,  I  have  been  wrong,  hopelessly  wrong,  from 
the  beginning.  I  have  been  making  myself,  my 
own  feelings,  my  own  judgment,  the  measure  of 
Truth, — the  human  of  the  Divine — the  finite  of  the 
Infinite — myself  of  Grod !  And  when,  by  Grod's  favour, 
he  got  the  opportunity  of  consulting  the  experienced 
Ambrose  upon  his  spiritual  troubles,  may  not  the 
Christian  monitor  have  simply  replied  to  him :  True, 
you  have  been  making  yourself  judge  of  matters 
quite  beyond  your  means  of  judgment :  you  have 
been  choosing  for  yourself,  choosing  your  own  means, 
your  own  road,  your  own  oracles.  This  is  Heresy ; 
this  is  the  source  of  error  against  which  the  holy 
Apostles  have  warned  you ;  this  is  that  perversion 
of  the  human  reason  against  which  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures are  set  up  as  a  beacon  of  light  and  safety  ? 
Thus  warned,  the  scales  would  seem  to  drop  from  his 
eyes.  The  sermons  of  Ambrose  himself,  the  comments 
of  the  pious  men  who  flocked  around  him,  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Christian  Church  at  Milan,  the  discipline 
of  the  catechumens  with  whom  he  was  now  ranging 


S^.  Atigustine.  97 


himself,  would  all  tend  to  give  him  clearer  and 
deeper  views  of  the  errors  whereby  he  had  been 
deluded ;  he  would  quickly  learn  to  connect  in  his 
own  mind  every  evil  practice  among  the  false 
teachers  with  the  heretical  pravity  thus  fastened 
upon  them ;  he  would  come  to  look  with  deep, 
perhaps  with  excessive  jealousy  upon  every  departure 
from  the  strict  doctrine  and  still  stricter  discipline 
of  the  Church,  and  to  deem  it  the  Christian's  first 
duty  to  exert  whatever  authority  he  possessed  in  the 
extirpation — aye,  even  the  forcible  extirpation  of 
error.  But  the  Pagan  was  surely  wiser  than  St. 
Augustine,  who  warned  us  long  before,  '  Deorum  in- 
jurise  Dis  curse'  (the  gods  will  look  to  their  own 
honour) ;  or,  as  I  would  rather  say  in  the  words  of 
Scripture  itself,  'Vengeance  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord; 
I  will  repay.'  The  Christian  Origen,  the  Christian 
TertuUian,  had  both  already  decisively  declared  that 
'  Religion  cannot  constrain  Religion.' 

I  have  well-nigh  exhausted  the  time  which  can 
be  allotted  me,  and  you  can  imagine  how  inexhaust- 
ible is  the  subject  on  which  I  have  ventured  to  make 
these  almost  desultory  observations.  But  there  is 
one  other  point  which,  before  concluding,  I  would 
not  leave  altogether  unnoticed.     An  essay  or  lecture 


98  S^.  Augustine. 


on  the  character  and  influence  of  the  great  Augustine, 

without  reference  to  his  contest  with  Pelagius,  and 

the  question  of  Grace  and  Freewill  with  which  his 

name  is  most  popularly  connected,  would  be  even 

too  glaringly  deficient.     Yet,  what  can  I  say  upon  it 

within  the  compass  of  two  or  three  pages?     What 

light  could  I  throw  upon  it,  so  slight  as  is  my  own 

acquaintance   with    the   details   of    that   wide   and 

weighty  controversy,  so  inadequate  as  is  my  ability 

to  thi'ead  the  intricate  reasonings  it  involves  ?     The 

utterances  of  the  holy  Doctor  upon  these  abstruse 

subjects  are  scattered  throughout  his  works,  and  refer 

to  various  periods  of  his  life,  and  no  doubt  to  different 

stages  of  opinion  in  his  own  mind.     I  do  not  suppose 

that  any  one  considers  the  many  attempts  which  have 

been  made  to  harmonize  them  as  really  successful. 

It   will  be   generally  allowed  that  in  refuting  the 

Manichees,  who  maintained  the  entire  corruption  of 

human  nature,  Augustine  admitted  the  freedom  of  the 

Will,  so  far  at  least  as  to  long  for  the  Good,  to  aim 

at  it,  if  not  actually  to  attain  to  it ;  while,  on  the 

other  hand,  in  controversy  with  the  Pelagians,  he 

would  seem  to  assert  that  the  unregenerate  man,  of  his 

own  power,  can  neither  do  nor  will  any  good  thing.' 

'  Hagenbach  {Hist,  of  DoctHnes,  vol.  i,  §  112)  summarises 
the  controversy  on  the  point  of  Liberty  and  Grace  : — 


S^.  Augustine..  99 


Nevertheless,  theologians  have  allowed  that  whatever 
difference  may  be  traced  in  his  views  on  this  point 
under  different  circumstances,  it  is  as  the  asserter 
of  Divine  Grrace,  of  Predestination,  of  Election  by 
the  will  of  God  only,  that  Augustine  is  most 
eminently  distinguished.  This  is  the  judgment 
which,  however  modified,  explained,  and  perhaps 
explained  away,  has  been  the  foundation  of  the 
Church's  teaching  in  all  after  ages,  to  which  she  has 
been  again  and  again  recalled  by  many  eminent 
masters  when  she  seemed  to  have  obscured  or  for- 
gotten it.  Now,  I  have  tried  to  show,  in  some  special 
instances,  how  our  Doctor's  views  were  plainly  moulded 
by  the  character  of  his  own  spiritual  experiences.  I 
would  counsel  you  to  look  to  similar  causes  and  effects 
in  the  case  before  us.     The  question  of  Grace  and 

'  Pelagius  admitted  that  man  in  his  moral  efforts  stands  in 
need  of  the  Divine  aid,  and  therefore  spoke  of  the  grace  of  God 
as  assisting  the  imperfections  of  man  by  a  variety  of  means. 
He  supposed,  however,  that  this  grace  of  God  is  something 
external,  and  added  to  the  efforts  put  forth  by  the  freewill  of 
man ;  it  must  therefore  be  discovered  by  virtuous  inclinations. 
Augustine,  on  the  other  hand,  looked  upon  it  as  the  creative 
principle  of  life,  which  produces  out  of  itself  the  liberty  of  the 
will  which  is  entirely  lost  in  the  natural  man.  .  .  .  the  regenerate 
man  alone  can  will  the  good  ....  operari  Deum  in  cordibus 
hominum  non  solum  veras  revelationes  sed  bonas  etiam  volun- 
tates.' 

H  2 


lOO  SL  Atigtistine. 


Freewill  has  been  agitated  among  men  from  the  first. 
In  spite  of  anything  Augustine  may  have  written,  or 
the  hundreds  of  disputants  since  Augustine,  this  same 
question  is  still  presented  to  every  one  of  us,  to  each 
in  his  generation,  and  will  surely  never  approach 
more  nearly  to  a  definite  settlement  than  at  the  first. 
And  why  ?  Because  it  is  not  a  question  of  logical  or 
mathematical  truth,  which  is  subject  to  abstract  and 
immutable  laws,  but  refers  to  the  diverse  constitu- 
tion and  temperaments  of  men,  which  can  never  be 
expected  to  coincide.  It  is  a  mystery,  and  a  mystery 
has  ever  two  sides.  Augustine  took  the  side  of  Grrace, 
and  threw  himself  into  the  controversy — which  in 
his  day  had  assumed  a  very  practical  shape,  when 
Pelagius  was  threatening  to  divide  the  Church  on  a 
question  which  seemed  to  involve  the  doctrine  of 
Kedemption  itself — threw  himself  into  it  with  all  his 
energy,  and  I  would  add,  with  much  of  his  fanatic 
extravagance.  And  why  did  he  take  this  view? 
Surely,  it  was  the  overpowering  sense  of  his  own  per- 
sonal experience  that  impelled  him  to  it.  Reflection 
upon  the  chequered  course  of  his  own  spiritual  career 
would  impress  him  with  a  sense  of  the  inability  of 
the  human  will  to  acquire  an  effectual  knowledge  of 
Divine  Truth.     In  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  intel- 


S^.  Augustine.  loi 


lectual  freedom,  he  had  ran  through  all  the  known 
systems  of  moral  discipline;  he  was  conscious  how 
truly  he  had  wished  to  attain  to  the  highest  prin- 
ciples of  religion,  how  earnest  had  been  his  efforts. 
He  had  become  aware  of  the  hindrance  imposed  on 
his  aspirations  by  the  world  and  the  flesh;  he  had 
confessed  and  repented  of  sin  ;  nevertheless,  neither 
Paganism,  nor  philosophy,  nor  any  self-devised  notions 
of  Eevelation  itself,  had  availed  to  satisfy  him  that 
he  had  at  last  received  a  call  from  Grod,  and  had 
become  actually  converted  to  the  Faith  as  it  is  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Then  it  was  that  the  conviction  was 
forced  upon  him  that  the  call  must  be  the  gift,  the 
free  gift  of  Grod  Himself ;  that  the  human  will,  the 
mere  natural  desire,  however  intense,  has  no  power 
of  itself  to  lead  a  man  to  his  Redeemer  ;  and  that 
any  system  of  religion  which  assumes  man's  possess- 
ing such  a  power  must  stand  self-condemned  under 
a  true  interpretation  of  the  Divine  Word.  But, 
inasmuch  as  he  knew  only  too  well  how  opposed  this 
conviction  was  to  the  popular  notions  of  the  time, 
and  how  grievously  he  had  been  himself  deluded  by 
them,  he  resolved  to  take  his  stand  firmly  upon  this 
cardinal  Truth,  to  follow  it  out  to  any  logical  ex- 
treme in  the  distance,  to  admit  of  no  compromise  of 


I02  SL  Augtcstine. 


the  doctrine  of  Grace,  as  the  only  ordained  means 
of  salvation.  Nor  was  it  possible  for  him,  perhaps, 
having  once  laid  down  this  principle,  to  shrink  from 
dogmatizing  on  its  direct  corollary,  the  doctrine  of 
divine  Predestination.  If  a  man's  own  freewill  can- 
not secure  divine  Grrace  for  him,  it  is  because  Grrace 
is  given  by  God  to  those  whom  He  has  chosen  and 
appointed  for  it,  not  to  whosoever  himself  desires  it. 
Grace,  Predestination,  Election,  are  all  closely  linked 
together ;  so  combined  they  form  the  most  prominent 
feature  in  St.  Paul's  inspired  teaching.  But  St.  Paul's 
general  doctrine  is  again  modified  by  the  sense  which 
all  Scripture  conveys  to  us  of  our  personal  responsi- 
bility. It  is  clear  that  both  must  co-exist,  diversity 
in  unity,  harmonized  only  in  the  Divine  omniscience  ; 
predestination  cannot  destroy  responsibility,  responsi- 
bility must  not  put  out  of  sight  predestination.  We 
have  before  us,  as  I  said,  a  mystery  which  has  two 
sides  ;  imperfect  as  we  are,  we  must  accept  it  as 
it  stands  revealed  to  us.  But  if  Augustine,  like  so 
many  teachers  after  him,  leant  too  much  to  the  one 
side,  as  at  least  in  his  controversy  with  Pelagius  will 
be  generally  conceded,  we  may  thus  trace  his  error 
to  a  sentiment  which  was  really  and  deeply  religious. 
For  he  felt  the  obligation  of  giving  all  the  glory  to 


S^.  AugMstine.  103 


Grod  for  the  immense  blessing  he  had  himself  re- 
ceived ;  he  felt  the  duty  of  glorifying  GTod,  especially 
in  a  generation  so  much  addicted  to  the  glorification 
of  human  nature.  He  burned  with  just  indignation 
at  the  pride  of  Paganism  and  philosophy,  which, 
though  deprived  of  secular  power,  still  contended 
intellectually  for  the  mastery  with  the  advancing 
convictions  of  Christian  faith.  Again  and  again  have 
similar  conditions  arisen  in  human  society  at  many 
later  periods ;  and  again  has  the  preaching  of  Grrace, 
Election,  and  Predestination  assumed  the  same  pro- 
minence in  Christian  teaching  as  in  the  days  of  St. 
Paul  and  of  Augustine.  Such  was  the  preaching  of  a 
Luther,  a  Knox,  and  a  Calvin,  which  struck  down  the 
Paganism  of  the  corrupted  Church  in  the  sixteenth 
century  throughout  so  large  a  part  of  Christendom  : 
such  was  the  preaching  which  uttered  so  bold  a  pro- 
test from  the  lips  of  Nicole,  of  Arnauld,  of  Pascal, 
against  the  corrupt  Church  of  France  under  the  pre- 
vailing influence  of  the  Jesuits  :  such  was  the  preach- 
ing by  which  Whitefield  and  the  so-called  Calvinists 
among  ourselves,  such  as  Newton  and  Cecil,  Eomaine 
and  Toplady,  awakened  the  Church  of  England  from 
its  philosophical  pride  or  lethargy  in  the  century 
before  our  own.     If  such  preaching  is  not  advanced 


I04  S^.  Augustine. 


so  vehemently  in  our  churches  and  chapels  at  the 
present  day  as  at  earlier  epochs,  we  may,  I  trust, 
take  it  as  a  sign  that  whatever  our  religious  defects 
may  be,  there  is  less  of  the  mere  pride  of  intellect 
among  professing  Christians,  a  more  effectual  sense 
of  our  spiritual  weakness,  a  better  inclination  to  yield 
ourselves  to  the  familiar  teaching  of  those  who  are  set 
over  us ;  so  that,  comparing  line  with  line  and  pre- 
cept with  precept,  we  may  free  ourselves  from  all  one- 
sided exaggeration,  and  attain  with  submission  and 
circumspection  unto  the  true  proportion  of  the  Faith.* 

1  M.  de  Pressense  sums  up  the  moral  question  involved  in 
the  controversy  between  Pelagius  and  Augustine  with  force,  and 
I  think  with  sound  judgment,  from  the  point  of  view  both  of 
religion  and  history: — 

*  On  nous  objectera,  peut-etre,  qu'au  point  de  vue  moral 
I'angustinisme  a  des  consequences  bien  graves  et  qu'il  porta 
atteinte  ^  la  responsabilite  de  la  creature  libre.  Nous  en  con- 
venons;  mais  nous  affirmons  que  le  sentiment  qui  a  inspire 
I'augustinisme,  meme  dans  ses  plus  fatales  erreurs,  6tait  pro- 
fondement  religieux  :  ce  sentiment  c'etait  le  besoin  ardent  de 
donner  toute  gloire  ^  Dieu,  de  prosterner,  de  courber  devant 
lui  dans  la  poudre  la  creature  coupable  qui  avait  ose  lui  disputer 
sa  gloire  ;  c'etait  com  me  une  revanche  passionnee  de  I'humilite 
chr^tienne  contre  I'orgueil  humain.  Qu'on  n'oublie  pas  les 
circonstances  dans  lesquelles  I'augustinisme  s'est  produit  au 
quatri^me  si^cle,  comme  aussi  au  seizi^me  dans  la  reformation 
et  au  dix-septi^me  dans  le  jansenisme  ;  ^  ces  trois  epoques  une 
tentative  audacieuse  avait  ete  faite  de  relever  le  merite  humain 
au-deasus  de  la  grace.     Les  vrais  Chretiens  ne  peuvent  accepter 


St  Augustine.  \o^ 


Slight  as  this  sketch  of  Augustine's  teaching  has 
been,  it  has  not  left  me  room  for  any  reference  to  the 
work  which  was  perhaps,  in  his  day,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all — his  treatise  on  the  '  City  of  God.'  Cer- 
tainly, I  have  not  forgotten  it ;  but  its  interest  is  of 
an  historical  rather  than  a  theological  character,  and 
it  is  to  the  dogmatic  views  of  the  great  Doctor  that 
the  course  of  my  observations  on  his  life  have  led  me 
in  the  present  lecture.  When  I  come,  in  another 
address,  to  speak  of  the  historical  foundation  of  the 
Papal  pretensions,  with  Pope  Leo  the  Great  for  my 
central  figure,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  particu- 
larly to  the  ecclesiastical  position  asserted  by  this 
famous  manifesto. 

froidement  une  telle  perversion.  ...  lis  peuvent  se  tromper 
dans  cette  voie  en  exagerant  leur  reaction.  .  .  .  N'importe ;  ils 
accomplissent  un  acte  essentiellement  moral  et  religieux,  tandis 
que  leurs  adversaires,  qui  peuvent  avoir  raison  dans  quelques- 
unes  de  leurs  objections,  obeissent  neanmoins  k  une  inspiration 
mondaine  et  subversaire  de  la  vraie  religion,  car  celle-ci  implique 
la  dependance  absolue  de  I'lionune  vis-^-vis  de  Dieu.  L'histoire 
d'ailleurs  apporte  son  puissant  temoignage  k  I'augustinisme. 
Partout  ou  il  a  predomine  le  niveau  de  la  vie  religieuse  et 
morale  s'est  eleve  ;  partout  ou  le  pelagianisme  a  triomphe  ce 
niveau  s'est  abaisse.  .  .  .  Ainsi  done  repetons  encore  qu'au 
point  de  vue  de  la  morale,  comme  k  celui  du  dogme,  s'il  faut 
choisir  entre  I'augustinisme  et  le  pelagianisme,  plutot  cent  fois 
le  premier  que  le  second.' — Seancea  historiques,  p.  324. 


LECTUKE  III. 

ST.  LEO  THE  GREAT,  AND  THE  EISE  OF  THE 
PAPACY. 

The  great  Saint  Augustine,  of  whose  life  and  teach- 
ing I  gave  you  a  sketch  in  my  last  lecture,  was  still 
Bishop  of  Hippo  at  the  period  of  the  secular  fall  of 
Eome,  early  in  the  fifth  century.  The  sack  of  the 
imperial  city  by  the  Goths  led  directly  to  the  firmer 
establishment  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the  West, 
and  to  the  exaltation  of  the  Roman  see,  and  so, 
under  the  vigorous  rule  of  the  illustrious  pontiff 
Leo,  to  the  rise  of  the  Papal  supremacy.  The  sack 
of  Rome  has  thus  given  a  colour  to  the  whole  subse- 
quent history  of  Europe,  and  I  think  we  are  justified 
in  regarding  that  event  as  the  legitimate  commence- 
ment of  modern  society.  As  it  has  been  tersely 
expressed  by  a  great  French  poet — 

Un  grand  destin  commence,  un  grand  destin  s'acheve. 
Unless  all  history  is  to  be  written  from  the  creation 
of  the  world,  the  historian  must  mark  for  himself 


SL  Leo  the  Great.  107 

some  definite  epochs,  and  appropriate  points  both  of 
starting  and  of  pausing. 

The  Western  empire  had  been  defended  against 
the  barbarians  under  Alaric  by  the  valour  of  Stilicho, 
and  the  invaders,  though  they  had  secured  for  them- 
selves the  passage  of  the  Alps,  could  penetrate  no 
farther  southward.  The  puny  emperor  Honorius 
had  abandoned  Kome ;  but  he  had  planted  his  throne 
in  advance  of  the  imperial  city  at  Eavenna,  a  place 
at  that  time  especially  strong  in  itself,  and  con- 
venient for  government.  Confident  in  the  victories 
his  able  general  had  now  achieved,  he  allowed  himself 
to  give  way  to  some  miserable  personal  jealousy,  and 
contrived  the  assassination  of  his  protector.  On 
Stilicho's  death  the  Groths  stirred  again.  The  Em- 
peror, a  feeble  devotee,  had  had  the  temerity  to 
exclude  all  Pagans  from  his  military  service.  He 
was  forced  to  remove  the  prohibition  in  all  haste ; 
but  it  was  now  too  late.  Alaric  was  advancing.  No 
Koman  commanders  dared  to  confront  him ;  but 
Honorius  was  satisfied  when  he  saw  the  invader  leave 
Ravenna  on  his  flank,  and  throw  himself  upon  the 
direct  road  to  Rome.  The  citizens,  thus  deserted, 
were  utterly  dismayed.  The  ramparts  of  Aurelian 
had  indeed   been   recently  repaired,   but    the    de- 


io8  S^.  Leo  the  Great. 

scendants  of  Mars  and  Eomulus  had  been  forbidden 
to  bear  arms  for  two  hundred  years  previously,  and 
there  were  no  disciplined  legions  at  hand  to  take 
their  place  on  the  ramparts. 

A  curious  incident  followed.  Certain  Etruscans, 
it  is  said,  fleeing  before  the  advancing  barbarians, 
entered  the  city.  They  spoke  with  fond  regret  of 
the  long-neglected  usages  of  their  countrymen,  and 
protested  that,  by  resorting  to  their  ancient  rites, 
they  had  already  saved  one  of  their  towns  from 
falling  into  the  enemy's  hands.  They  had  evoked 
lightning  from  heaven,  and  thrown  the  invading 
hosts  into  confusion.  Pompeianus,  prefect  of  the 
city,  lent  a  facile  ear  to  this  hopeful  story,  and 
deigned  to  refer  to  the  pontifical  books,  which,  it 
seems,  were  still  accessible,  to  direct  him.  From 
these  he  turned  to  the  Eoman  bishop  Innocent,  who 
had  succeeded  to  the  great  Ambrose  of  Milan  in 
respect  and  authority  among  the  believers.  The 
bishop  hesitated ;  he  would  not,  indeed,  refuse  to 
allow  the  Etruscans  to  take  their  own  measures,  but 
they  must  do  so  on  their  own  responsibility ;  they 
must  do  so  privately.  They  replied  that  their  rites 
must  be  performed  at  a  public  ceremonial;  the 
people  must  take  part  in  them ;  the  senate  must 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  109 

mount  the  Capitol  in  solemn  pomp,  and  perform  the 
sacrifices  ordained  of  old ;  otherwise,  they  would  be 
ineffectual.  We  hear  no  further  how  Innocent  con- 
ducted himself.  The  Pagan  historian  Zosimus  de- 
clares that  the  senators  themselves  shrank  from  this 
bold  assertion  of  Pagan  belief,  how  much  soever  many 
of  them  might  at  heart  incline  to  it ;  while  a  Christian 
authority  does  not  scruple  to  affirm  that  they  actually 
assisted  at  the  impious  rites,  which  proved,  of  course, 
utterly  unavailing.  Both  the  one  party  and  the 
other  was  evidently  concerned  to  justify,  from  its 
own  point  of  view,  the  doom  which  fell  on  the 
devoted  city;  the  Pagan  hinting  that  it  was  pro- 
voked by  the  cowardice  of  the  Pagans,  the  Christian 
that  it  was  a  righteous  punishment  for  the  want  ot 
faith  in  the  believers ;  but  which  of  them  gave  the 
true  account,  it  seems  impossible  to  determine.  The 
story  in  either  case  is  interesting  to  us,  as  showing 
how  undecided  were  the  convictions  both  of  Christians 
and  Pagans  during  the  mortal  crisis  of  the  ancient 
superstitions,  and  how  nearly,  under  a  common  cala- 
mity, they  sympathised  one  with  the  other.  Mean- 
while, Alaric  drew  nearer.  No  aid  could  now  come 
from  Eavenna,  and  he  straitened  the  supplies  of 
the   city,   while   he   calmly  awaited   its  surrender. 


no  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

A  large  and  unprepared  population  was  soon  reduced 
to  extremity.  The  Christians  exercised  their  charity 
to  the  utmost,  but  their  means  were  presently  ex- 
hausted. At  last  the  citizens  sued  for  mercy,  and 
offered  ransom.  Alaric's  demands  seemed  exor- 
bitant. They  threatened  him  with  the  despair  of 
their  enormous  multitudes.  '  The  thicker  the 
hay,'  he  exclaimed  derisively,  '  the  easier  to  mow 
it!'  When  he  named  his  lowest  terms,  they  were 
struck  with  consternation.  '  What,  then,  will  you 
leave  us  ? '  they  muttered.  '  Your  lives,'  was  his 
stern  reply. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  price  at  which  the  great 
city  was  valued.  The  demands  of  the  captor,  as 
Zosimus  particularly  informs  us,  were  5,000  pounds 
of  gold,  30,000  of  silver,  4,000  silken  robes,  3,000 
pieces  of  scarlet  cloth,  3,000  pounds  of  pepper.  We 
may  take  the  amount  of  gold  and  silver  at  350,000^. 
of  our  money.  The  silk  and  the  spice  were  no  doubt 
very  valuable.  I  do  not  know  whether  their  price  can 
be  calculated  more  closely.  But  the  whole  sum,  if 
fairly  represented  by  half  a  million  sterling,  may 
moderate  our  ideas  of  the  wealth  and  population  of 
Rome  at  this  period  of  its  decline.^  The  ransom  of 
'  The  value  assigned  to  the  items  enumerated  must  be  taken 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  1 1 1 

Paris,  exacted  by  the  Germans  in  1871 — five  milliards 
of  francs,  or  200  millions  sterling — would  seem  to 
have  been  four  hundred  times  greater.  Modern 
Paris  contains,  no  doubt,  thrice  the  numbers  of 
Eome  at  the  period  before  us,  and  I  dare  say  ten 
times  its  wealth.  Yet  the  greed  of  the  Goths,  bar- 
barians as  they  were,  seems  trifling  compared  with 
that  of  their  more  civilised  descendants  in  our  own 
considerate  days.  But  Alaric  and  his  Goths  were 
satisfied,  and  kept  faith  with  the  conquered  people, 
who  liquidated  the  charge  by  spoiling  the  temples 
and  images  of  the  ancient  divinities.  Among  these 
images  was  one,  says  the  Pagan  historian,  of  Courage 
or  Virtue,  '  as  the  Eomans  call  her ' :  when  this 
divinity  was  cast  into  the  melting-pot,  disappeared 
from  Rome  all  that  remained  of  her  honour  or 
valour.  '  The  men,'  he  adds,  '  who  were  adepts  in 
divine  lore  announced  but  too  truly  the  ruin  which 
should  follow.' 

Ruin  was  indeed  impending,  but  the  fall  was  yet 


on  a  wide  conjecture  ;  but  I  believe  we  may  estimate  the  pound 
of  gold  at  about  £50  in  our  money,  and  the  pound  of  silver  at 
l-15th  the  value  of  gold.  Accordingly,  5,000  lbs.  of  gold  would 
amoimt  to  £250,000,  30,000  lbs.  of  silver  (  =  2,000  lbs.  of  gold)  to 
£100,000. 


112  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

for  a  moment  deferred.  Thereupon  the  weak  and  va- 
cillating Emperor  sought  to  make  terms  with  the  old 
idolatry  he  had  hitherto  proscribed.  But  adversity 
did  not  teach  him  to  deal  loyally  with  his  triumphant 
enemy.  Alaric  felt  himself  aggrieved,  and  advanced 
again  upon  Rome.  He  passed  round  the  walls,  and 
seized  upon  the  port  of  Ostia.  The  supplies  of  the 
city  were  at  once  cut  off.  She  knew  too  well  what 
must  be  her  fate,  and  promptly  opened  her  gates. 
The  Groth  had  now  changed  his  policy,  and  pro- 
claimed a  rival  Emperor.  His  minion  Attains  had 
been  hitherto  a  Pagan :  he  now  accepted  Arian 
baptism  among  his  new  allies,  who  were  mostly 
attached  to  the  Arian  profession ;  but  at  the  same 
time  he  openly  favoured  the  Pagan  faction  in  the 
city,  as  still  offering  him  the  strongest  support.  So 
hard  did  the  old  religion  die,  even  in  these  its 
expiring  throes!  But  no  sooner  had  Alaric  with- 
drawn, than  the  throne  of  his  feeble  nominee  was 
shaken.  The  people  rose  and  drove  away  the  pre- 
tender. Alaric  now  gave  Attains  to  understand  that 
he  must  not  affect  to  reign  where  he  could  not 
govern ;  but  the  conqueror  undertook  to  avenge  the 
insult  thus  offered  to  himself,  and  appeared  a  third 
time  before  the  devoted  walls.     An  early  prophecy 


67.  Leo  the  Great,  113 

had  assured  him  that  he  should  enter  Rome :  a 
voice  still  constantly  echoed  in  his  ears,  crying 
out  and  saying,  '  On,  and  destroy  the  city ! ' 

The  Eomans  closed  their  barriers,  and  pretended 
to  defend  them ;  but  the  Salarian  gate  was  opened 
by  treachery,  and  the  Groths  descended  into  the  city 
on  the  24th  day  of  August  410.  At  the  same  point, 
800  years  before,  the  Grauls  had  entered  Rome,  bring- 
ing fire  and  sword.  But  Alaric  was  no  Brennus ;  the 
Groths,  though  they  had  some  desperate  treacheries 
to  avenge,  were  not  bent  on  slaughter  or  destruction. 
The  barbarians  were  content  with  some  days  of 
pillage,  and  doubtless  the  sack  of  the  world's  capital 
was  not  accomplished  without  violence  and  cruelty. 
Doubtless,  men  were  slain  in  the  defence  of  their 
homes  or  their  families.  Women  were  dishonoured. 
Slaves  were  set  free,  with  such  consequences  as  we 
may  imagine.  Concealed  treasures  were  drawn  forth 
by  threats  and  tortures.  Many  houses,  some  temples, 
were  given  to  the  flames  ;  but  the  Christians,  for  their 
part,  ascribed  such  catastrophes  generally  to  light- 
ning, and  pointed  to  the  Divine  judgment,  as  indi- 
cated thereby,  which  had  at  last  fallen  upon  the 
Babylon  of  Revelation.  Both  Augustine  and  Jerome, 
who  describe  the  event  in  excited  language,  seem 

I 


114  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

willing  to  extenuate  the  crimes  of  the  conquerors, 
partly  with  a  view  to  insinuating  that  the  fall  of 
Eome  was  Grod's  work,  not  man's;  partly  to  show 
that  the  Groths  were  softened,  at  least,  even  by  the 
imperfect  form  of  Gospel  truth  they  had  adopted. 
These  apologists  do  not  pretend  indeed  that  the 
believers  had  escaped,  as  from  Jerusalem  of  old, 
unscathed  in  the  universal  disaster ;  but  they  declared 
that  the  instrument  of  Divine  vengeance,  himself  a 
believer  though  a  heretic,  had  interfered  stoutly  for 
their  protection.  Assuredly  Alaric  respected  the 
churches,  and  within  their  sacred  walls  the  Christians 
found  shelter  and  safety.  The  right  of  asylum  was 
extended  even  to  the  Pagans  who  sought  refuge  at 
the  altars  of  the  Eedeemer  of  mankind.  Among 
the  edifices  which  succumbed  to  the  flames  the 
churches  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  escaped  unin- 
jured. Even  the  treasures  of  the  sanctuary,  with 
the  furniture  of  plate  and  jewels,  were  preserved 
intact.  On  one  occasion  a  furious  plunderer  was 
overawed  by  the  sanctity  of  a  helpless  virgin,  who 
placed  the  vessels  she  guarded  under  the  protection 
of  the  Apostles.  Another,  who  offered  her  life  to 
preserve  her  honour,  was  led  by  the  remorseful 
barbarian  to  the  door  of  the  church,  and  a  gift  of 


St  Leo  the  Great.  115 

gold  forced  upon  her.  Marcella,  the  aged  friend  of 
Jerome,  was  beaten  to  extort  the  treasures  she  was 
reputed  to  possess,  but  which  she  had  actually  ex- 
pended in  charity ;  and  she  too  softened  the  heart  of 
the  oppressor,  and  was  brought  by  his  kindly  hand 
to  the  common  asylum,  the  church  dedicated  to  the 
holy  Paul. 

It  was  well,  perhaps,  that  Innocent  the  bishop 
was  absent  from  the  city  at  this  crisis.  He  had 
betaken  himself  to  Ravenna  to  implore  assistance. 
His  spiritual  office  gave  him  the  first  place  in  the 
confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens.  His  courage  or  his 
sense  of  duty  might  have  impelled  him,  had  he  been 
present,  to  protract  a  hopeless  resistance. 

The  barbarian  was  soon  satisfied  with  his  easy 
triumph.  He  quitted  Rome  within  twelve  days; 
nor  did  he  now  trouble  himself  to  impose  any  ruler 
or  form  of  government  upon  its  people.  His  fol- 
lowers were  impatient  for  plunder  elsewhere.  Mean- 
while, great  numbers  of  all  classes  and  of  every  per- 
suasion fled  beyond  sea.  Many  Christians  betook 
themselves  to  the  opposite  shores  of  Africa,  where 
they  were  hospitably  entertained  by  the  flourishing 
communities  of  their  fellow-believers.  But  com- 
plaint was  made  that  they  brought  with  them  an 
I  2 


1 1 6  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

inveterate  spirit  of  levity  and  worldliness ;  and  the 
fugitives  from  the  sack  of  Eome  caused  grave  scandal 
in  the  bosom  of  a  purer  and  simpler  society.  Alaric 
was  soon  cut  oif  by  sickness  in  Southern  Italy,  so  often 
fatal  to  conquerors  from  beyond  the  Alps.  After  his 
death  the  great  Gothic  invasion  ebbed  backwards, 
and  the  Romans,  in  diminished  numbers  and  abashed 
in  spirit,  returned  to  their  homes.  The  Pagans  were 
utterly  cowed.  They  allowed  their  temples,  the 
remnant  of  those  which  had  not  yet  been  actually 
closed,  to  remain  empty  or  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
their  opponents.  The  decrees,  long  issued  but  only 
partially  enforced  against  them,  acquired  now  a 
living  authority.  The  vital  powers  of  the  ancient 
creeds  seemed  to  collapse  with  the  loss  of  property 
and  position.  The  Christian  priesthood  grew  rich  on 
the  resources  of  the  Pagan  endowments,  and  still 
more,  perhaps,  from  the  perennial  offerings  of  the 
devout  and  charitable.  The  world  in  general  bowed 
to  their  jubilant  assertion,  that  the  fall  of  Rome  was 
the  judgment  of  God  upon  the  unbelieving  world, 
and  beheld  in  the  greatest  of  secular  calamities  an 
overwhelming  proof  of  the  Gospel  revelation. 

The  conquest  of  the  city  by  Alaric  in  the  year 
410  may  be  emphatically  designated  as  the  '  Fall  of 


SL  Leo  the  Great.  1 1 7 

Eome,'  although  the  ancient  capital  of  civil  society 
still  survived,  to  be  stormed  and  sacked  twice  again 
in  the  course  of  the  sixty  years  that  followed ;  nor 
was  her  secular  ascendancy  as  the  mistress  of  nations 
finally  overthrown  till  the  Western  empire  was 
dissolved  by  Odoacer  in  the  year  476.  It  was  the 
moral  or  religious  lesson  conveyed  by  the  conquest  of 
Alaric  that  really  constituted  the  fall  of  Eome,  for 
this  conquest  destroyed  once  for  all  the  idea  upon 
which  the  power  of  the  ancient  city  had  been  long 
sustained.  The  pervading  idea  of  the  ancient  world 
had  been  that  Eome,  the  capital  of  the  Empire,  the 
metropolis  of  all  secular  culture,  the  focus  of  all 
secular  energy,  was  the  City  of  Man ;  the  ultimate 
product  of  the  ages  of  human  life  and  progress.  She 
was  the  heir  of  Thebes  and  Babylon,  of  Phoenicia 
and  Etruria,  of  Carthage  and  Athens — '  Time's 
greatest  offspring  was  her  last ' — last  and  fairest ; 
rerum  pulcherrima  Eoma.  Surely  the  new  Eome, 
the  mushroom  city  of  Constantine,  was  a  mere  vul- 
gar imitation,  made  to  order,  of  this  the  true  crown 
and  glory  of  human  existence.  And  so  it  was  that 
the  proud  patriot  Cicero  had  long  before  declared  : 
'  A  city,  or  commonwealth,  should  be  so  constituted 
as  to  last  for  ever.     There  is  no  natural  dissolution 


1 1 8  SL  Leo  the  Great. 

of  a  city  as  of  a  man,  for  whom  death  is  always  a 
necessity,  sometimes  a  benefit.  But  when  a  city  is 
overthrown,  is  extinguished,  is  annihilated,  it  is  like 
as  if  (to  compare  small  things  with  great)  the  whole 
world  should  be  dissolved  and  perish.' 

This  was  a  sentiment  which  even  the  Christians 
had  not  failed  to  imbibe  and  appropriate.  The 
Apologists  of  an  earlier  generation  had  accepted  the 
imperial  domination  of  the  Grreat  City  as  a  principle 
of  Divine  government.  The  rule  of  Caesar  was  to 
them  a  law  of  Providence.  The  world,  in  their 
view,  was  Pagan,  unbelieving,  idolatrous  to  the  core ; 
it  stood  in  direct  opposition  to  the  society  of  Chris- 
tians or  the  Church,  to  which  belonged  the  promises 
of  the  future,  but  which  had  no  part  in  the  pride 
and  glory  of  the  present  life.  With  this  dispensa- 
tion they  were  in  the  main  content,  nor  did  they 
look  for  any  change  in  it.  The  ruler  of  the  Pagan 
world,  they  deemed,  must  of  necessity  be  a  Pagan. 
They  esteemed  it  to  be  his  place  in  Grod's  creation  to 
represent  the  secular  life  as  contrasted  with  the 
spiritual.  It  was  his  function  to  maintain  the 
Empire,  which  secured  the  peace  of  mankind,  and 
gave  scope  to  the  progress  of  Christian  sentiment 
within  it ;    and  above  all  to  maintain  the  grandeur 


\ 


SL  Leo  the  Great.  1 19 

and  solid  strength  of  the  imperial  city,  which  was 
the  appointed  type  of  the  Empire  and  of  the  world 
in  general.  Tertullian,  in  the  third  century,  never 
imagined  that  a  Caesar  could  be  converted  to  the 
Faith.  Lactantius,  in  the  fourth,  would  have  shud- 
dered at  the  idea  of  Eome  ever  ceasing  to  be  the 
imperial  ruler  of  the  nations.  Thoughtful  Church- 
men could  not  fail  to  see,  even  in  the  flourishing  era 
of  Constantine,  that  she  was  environed  with  awful 
perils,  and  to  apprehend  perhaps  that  her  days  were 
numbered  ;  but  beyond  the  fall  of  Eome  they  could 
see  nothing,  they  could  imagine  no  future  upon 
earth.  They  were  convinced  that  with  the  end  of 
Eome  would  come  the  end  of  the  world.  As  years 
went  on,  and  these  perils  thickened,  this  was  the  idea 
which  impressed  itself  most  strongly  upon  the  minds 
of  the  believers.  Here  at  last  the  adherents  of  the 
rival  persuasions  were  in  accord.  Both  proclaimed 
that  Eome  was  necessary  to  the  world,  and  would 
last  as  long  as  the  world  lasted,  and  perish  with  it. 

No  doubt  both  Pagan  and  Christian  were  oppres- 
sed with  sad  misgivings,  as  they  saw  the  swarms  of 
barbarians  closing  around  them,  their  emperors  fled, 
their  legions  withdrawn  and  scattered.  But  the 
Pagans,  for  their  part,  still  clung  to  their  faith  in 


1 20  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

Eoine  herself,  the  nearest  and  dearest  of  all  their 
divinities.  Her  career  throughout  had  been  plainly 
providential.  Her  gods  had  never  failed  her.  Who 
but  they  had  repulsed  the  Etruscans  and  the  Grauls, 
and  ' Antiochus,  and  the  dreadful  Hannibal'?  All  her 
defeats,  all  her  disasters  had  redounded  finally  to  her 
triumph,  and  her  triumph  had  been  extended  over 
three  continents,  and  prolonged  through  twelve  cen- 
turies. From  age  to  age  oracles  had  pronounced 
her  eternal ;  and  her  grandeur,  her  wealth,  her  inex- 
haustible resources  were  all  manifest  tokens  of  her 
immortality.  Affronted  as  she  was  by  the  violence 
of  a  Constantine,  the  craft  of  a  Theodosius,  or  the 
petulance  of  an  Honorius,  her  people  still  rallied 
round  her,  loved  her,  believed  in  her.  They  raised 
their  frantic  appeal  to  the  Powers  which  had  so  sig- 
nally protected  her,  and  refused  to  surrender  the  last 
faint  hope  of  a  triumphant  interposition  in  her 
favour.  But  of  this  hope  they  required  an  outward 
and  visible  token.  They  had  looked  to  Eome  herself 
as  the  last  pledge  of  their  shattered  creed.  The  fall 
of  Eome  extorted  from  their  lips  a  wail  of  disappoint- 
ment and  dismay,  such  as  has  never  been  heard  in 
the  world  before  or  since ;  but  with  the  fall  of  Eome 
their  creed  was  broken  to  atoms. 


1 


St.  Leo  the  Great.  121 

The  Christians,  on  the  other  hand,  while  still 
expecting  that  the  city  and  the  world  would  perish 
together,  could  cherish  other  hopes  and  livelier  con- 
solations. They  could  not  have  the  same  passionate 
attachment  to  Eome,  '  drunk  with  the  blood  of  the 
saints,'  as  was  natural  to  the  Pagans.  Nor  indeed 
did  their  instincts  point  to  the  eternal  duration  of 
any  monument  of  mere  worldly  greatness.  From 
the  first  they  were  familiar  with  the  expectation  of 
an  impending  consummation  of  all  things.  The 
crisis  had  been  long  delayed :  the  Apostles  had  looked 
for  it,  but  had  not  seen  it :  twelve  generations  had 
lived  and  died  anticipating  it ;  but  the  time  was  not 
yet.  As  the  fall  of  Rome  seemed  more  plainly 
approaching,  this  expectation  had  waxed  keener  than 
ever ;  though  now,  perhaps,  as  the  outward  condition 
of  the  Church  was  happier,  the  expectation  was  less 
joyous  and  sanguine  than  of  yore.  But  the  Christian 
could  look  beyond  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  city,  even 
though  the  city  and  the  world  should  be  dissolved  in 
one  common  destruction.  He  believed  in  'another 
city,  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.' 
To  the  believer  whose  faith  was  firm  and  hearty,  the 
vision  of  the  new  Jerusalem  more  than  compensated 
for  the  impending  dissolution  of  Rome. 


122  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

But  Rome  was  now  sacked,  ruined,  discrowned, 
depopulated ;  yet  the  world  did  not  perish.  The 
people  began  to  return  and  repair  their  desolate 
habitations.  The  ruin  proved  less  overwhelming 
than  in  their  despair  they  had  imagined  it.  Though 
never  again  to  be  the  queen  of  the  nations,  Eome 
might  yet  continue  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  of  pro- 
vincial centres.  Then  it  was  that  the  Christians 
came  boldly  to  the  front,  and  Augustine  put  forth  in 
his  '  City  of  God '  the  manifesto,  as  we  may  call  it, 
of  the  Church  against  the  worship  of  the  City  of 
Man,  by  which  the  Pagans  had  been  so  fatally 
beguiled.  In  this  elaborate  treatise  he  first  soothes 
the  excitement  of  the  Christian  sufferers.  While  he 
mainly  exonerates  them  from  the  guilt  which  has 
brought  down  this  visitation  upon  a  wicked  world, 
he  shows  them  how  they  too  may  regard  it  as  a 
warning  and  a  trial.  He  then  reminds  his  Pagan 
brethren,  by  a  review  of  their  past  history,  how  vain 
was  their  presumptuous  assurance  that  Eome  was 
protected  by  a  special  Providence ;  how  often,  how 
signally  she  had  been  afflicted  by  famine  and  pesti- 
lence, by  foreign  wars  and  by  civil  dissensions. 
Ancient  as  it  was,  the  Empire  of  Rome  had  not  yet 
attained  the  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  years  of  the 


S/.  Leo  the  Great. 


Assyrian  Babylon ;  yet  Babylon  had  not  been  im- 
mortal. And  from  thence  he  proceeds  to  invite  all 
Dfiankind  to  accept  the  revelation  of  the  divine 
Scriptures,  which  declare  that  their  true  and  eternal 
city  is  not  Eome  at  all,  is  no  material  and  visible 
structure,  but  the  heavenly  creation  of  the  Divine 
Artificer — the  spiritual  commonwealth  of  which  all 
the  servants  of  Grod  are  citizens.  For,  in  fact,  all 
mankind  form  two  rival  commonwealths  or  cities  : 
'  those  who  live  after  the  flesli,'  as  does  the  natural 
man ;  and  '  those  who  live  after  the  Spirit,'  that  is, 
according  to  the  law  of  God.  The  City  of  Grod  or 
of  Heaven  is  ever  glorious,  both  in  this  world  and 
in  the  next;  the  City  of  Man,  on  the  contrary, 
swayed  by  the  lust  of  power,  is  itself  the  slave  of 
greed,  even  while  it  believes  itself  to  be  the  mistress 
of  the  nations.  The  actual  existence  of  this  City  of 
God  is  proved  from  the  first  by  the  long  series  of 
prophecies  and  miracles  which  ranges  through  all  the 
Scripture  history,  declaring  the  operation  of  Divine 
providence;  the  victories  and  the  defeats  of  the 
people  of  God  equally  attest  His  care  of  them, 
and  the  glorious  end  to  which  all  things  are  tending 
together.  Here  is  consolation,  here  is  triumph,  here 
is  the  arcanum  Imperii,  the  secret  of  the  divine 


124  '^^-  Leo  the  Great. 

Empire.  This  remarkable  treatise,  whatever  its  defects 
of  method  and  precision,  strikes  the  key-note  of  all 
Christian  Apologies  in  after  time.  The  Pagans  can 
make  no  reply.  They  have  lost  all  heart  and  all 
faith  and  all  hope.  The  tradition  of  their  ancient 
superstitions,  driven  from  the  cities  and  resorts  of 
the  multitude,  may  still  linger  in  the  fields  and  vil- 
lages. The  last  vestiges  of  their  worship  may  still 
appear  faintly  and  dubiously  for  centuries  ;  nay,  they 
have  adhered,  as  we  know,  like  parasites  to  the  cere- 
monial of  Christian  churches,  their  origin  forgotten 
or  disguised  from  the  common  eye ;  but  the  old 
living  creed  of  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  of  Bel  and 
Mithras,  has  ceased  to  be  a  power  in  the  world  from 
this  time  for  ever. 

Yet,  I  say  we  must  be  circumspect  and  measure 
our  words  ;  we  must  not  be  too  sanguine  of  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  natural  instincts  of  Paganism,  which 
will  never  wholly  die  out  of  human  hearts,  but  will 
reappear  again  and  again,  with  new  names  and  under 
new  conditions,  even  in  the  bosom  of  the  true 
religion.  Our  task,  a  critical  and  a  delicate  task,  must 
now  be  to  examine  the  effect  of  this  signal  overthrow 
of  Pagan  creeds  upon  the  profession  of  Christianity 
itself;   and  I  must  ask  you  to  go  back  with  me  for  a 


Sf.  Leo  the  Great.  125 

few  moments  to  an  earlier  period,  and  trace  the  ten- 
dencies of  the  Church  which  are  now  about  to  de- 
velope  into  bolder  action. 

From  the  day  when  Constantino  first  abandoned 
his  ancient  capital,  Eome  had  gradually  dwindled 
into  a  provincial  city.  The  names  of  consuls  and 
senate  might  still  remain,  but  they  were  now  titles 
only,  no  longer  forces.  The  municipal  affairs  of  the 
venerable  burgh  were  conducted  by  a  Prefect,  a  crea- 
ture of  the  Emperor,  in  whose  appointment  the 
people  had  no  voice  or  interest.  For  the  most 
part  they  rendered  obedience  indeed  to  the  officer 
thus  set  over  them,  for  they  were  accustomed  to 
obey;  but  their  obedience,  devoid  of  love  or  con- 
fidence, was  never  proof  against  the  whim  or  passion 
of  the  moment,  as  they  often  made  him  feel.  The 
Prefect  of  Eome  sat  at  least  upon  a  thorny  eminence. 

But  the  Bishop  meanwhile  had  attained  a  far 
higher  position  than  before.  Constantino,  on  his 
first  and  only  visit  to  the  city  in  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century,  had  required  Liberius  to  join  in  the 
general  proscription  which  the  Arian  party,  then 
dominant  in  the  East,  had  inflicted  upon  Athanasius. 
The  orthodox  believers  were  stronger  at  Eome,  and 
their   Bishop    did    not    easily    yield.      When    the 


126  St.  Leo  the  Great, 

Emperor  withdrew,  he  acted  more  boldly.  He  now 
received  Athanasius  with  open  arms,  and  defied  the 
officer  who  was  sent  from  the  court  to  overawe  him. 
A  struggle  ensued.  Liberius  was  summoned  to 
attend  his  master  at  Milan;  his  contumacy  was 
punished,  and  he  was  banished  into  Thrace,  the 
Siberia  of  the  Romans.  During  his  absence,  the 
Emperor  thrust  a  rival  prelate  into  his  see.  The 
Christian  people  at  Rome  resented  both  the  indignity 
to  their  old  pastor,  and  the  irregularity  of  the  new 
appointment.  Felix,  the  intruder,  proved  to  be  an 
Arian.  The  Church  was  all  the  more  confirmed  in 
its  determination  to  resist.  The  faithful  refused 
to  enter  their  accustomed  basilicas.  The  women, 
more  impetuous  than  the  men,  came  in  long  proces- 
sion, like  the  Roman  matrons  of  old,  to  remonstrate 
with  the  heretical  tyrant.  Constantius  was  surpri- 
sed and  attempted  to  compromise,  declaring  that 
Liberius  and  Felix  should  be  bishops  of  Rome  con- 
jointly. '  Shall  we  have  factions  in  the  Church  as 
well  as  in  the  circus  ? '  rejoined  the  angry  multitude. 
'  One  God,  one  Christ,  one  Bishop  ! '  was  the  uni- 
versal cry  among  them.  The  Emperor,  in  his 
perplexity,  released  Liberius  from  captivity;  and 
then  left  the  question  to  settle  itself,  as  over-sapient 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  127 

advisers  so  often  counsel  us  in  similar  eases  to  do. 
But  the  people  would  allow  of  no  double  sovereignty. 
When  Felix  attempted  to  perform  episcopal  functions 
in  public,  they  broke  into  open  riot.  The  baths  and 
even  the  streets  were  deluged  in  blood.  The  factions 
of  the  old  tribunes  of  the  people  were  renewed. 
Eventually  Felix  fled,  and  left  his  rival  in  possession. 
But  when  Constantius  held  a  council  at  Ariminum, 
in  which  the  Arian  tenets  were  substantially 
sanctioned,  the  Bishop  of  Eome  kept  prudently  or 
proudly  aloof,  and  Rome  herself  was  not  stained  by 
any  condescension  to  heresy :  an  exemption  whereby 
her  consideration  in  Christendom  was,  no  doubt, 
highly  exalted. 

The  consideration  to  which  Rome  had  now  at- 
tained as  the  Christian  metropolis,  was  perhaps  the 
more  marked  from  the  wide-spread  indifference  to 
religious  creeds  which  could  not  fail  to  follow  upon 
the  protracted  agitation  of  popular  opinion  on  the 
subject.  The  soldiers  of  the  apostate  Julian,  the 
same  who  had  been  content  to  attend  their  leader's 
daily  sacrifices  to  Sol  and  Hercules,  chose  themselves 
a  nominal  Christian  for  their  Imperator  on  his  death, 
and  allowed  him  to  conduct  their  retreat  under  the 
Christian  standard  of  the  Labarum.     Jovian,  a  care- 


128  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

less  soldier  himself,  accepted  the  ascendancy  of  the 
Christian  Church ;  but  he  tolerated  both  heretics  and 
Pagans.  He  restored  Athanasius  to  his  episcopal 
see,  but  he  exercised  no  severity  against  the  Arians. 
Kome  he  abandoned,  during  his  short  reign  of  a  few 
months  only,  to  the  encroachments  of  the  bishops  as 
the  popular  favourites.  These  encroachments  daily 
assumed  a  higher  significance,  to  which  the  Pagans 
were  constrained  to  submit,  while  they  accepted  in 
sullen  silence  the  indulgence  which  Valentinian,  the 
next  of  the  Emperors,  extended  to  their  proscribed 
usages.  The  priesthoods  of  the  Pagan  cult  were  still 
occasionally  assumed  by  persons  of  distinction;  it 
appears  that  altars  and  shrines  were  still,  recent 
edicts  notwithstanding,  erected  here  and  there  to 
the  ancient  divinities.  The  Emperor  continued  to 
affect  the  style  of  Sovereign  Pontiff.  The  main- 
tenance of  these  forms  had  perhaps  little  meaning. 
The  vulgar  are  ever  wont  to  retain  a  scruple  at  the 
omission  of  outward  ceremonies,  long  after  they  have 
ceased  to  attach  to  them  any  intelligent  belief.  The 
real  active  belief  of  the  age  was  fixed,  in  fact,  as  far 
as  it  was  Pagan,  upon  sorcery  and  magic.  I  question 
whether  the  creed  of  Julian  had  any  other  positive 
basis  than  this. 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  129 


But  meanwhile  the  rigour  of  the  ecclesiastical 
rule  at  Rome  was  making  a  great  impression  upon 
the  mass  of  the  people,  who  saw  in  it,  if  nothing 
more,  at  least  a  step  towards  the  revival  of  the 
ancient  popular  prerogatives.  On  the  death  of 
Liberius  in  366,  the  struggle  for  the  succession  again 
broke  into  popular  violence  and  resulted  in  a  san- 
guinary contest.  It  is  not  in  the  chronicles  of  the 
Church  only  that  the  fatal  rivalry  of  Damasus  and 
Ursicinus  is  emblazoned.  The  heathen  historian  of 
the  period  relates  the  incident  in  the  same  spirit 
with  which  Livy  described  so  many  ages  before  the 
civil  strife  of  consuls  and  tribunes.  The  prize, 
says  Ammianus,  was  magnificent :  it  conferred 
wealth  and  splendour ;  it  secured  the  devotion  of 
women  of  the  highest  rank  ;  it  placed  the  fortunate 
aspirant  on  the  pinnacle  of  fashion  as  well  as  of 
luxury.  The  election  was  in  the  hands  of  the  whole 
multitude  of  believers;  but  the  rules  by  which  it 
was  conducted  were  perhaps  but  imperfectly  deter- 
mined. Each  of  the  candidates  claimed  a  legal 
victory ;  but  in  fact,  the  quarrel  seems  to  have  been 
decided  by  arms,  and  all  accounts  agree  that  so  great 
was  the  tumult,  so  fierce  and  numerous  the  com- 
batants on  either  side,  that   the    Prefect  confessed 

K 


130  SL  Leo  the  Great. 


himself  unable  to  maintain  the  peace  between  them, 
and  retired  in  confusion  beyond  the  walls.  The 
riot  lasted  apparently  for  several  days,  and  spread 
from  quarter  to  quarter.  In  one  Christian  church, 
and  on  a  single  day,  as  many  as  a  hundred  and  sixty 
persons  are  reported  to  have  lost  their  lives.  But 
Damasus,  it  was  maliciously  said,  was  the  favourite 
with  the  Eoman  ladies.  He  remained  finally  in 
possession,  and  has  been  recognised  as  the  true  bishop 
by  ecclesiastical  tradition. 

Such  then  was  the  progress  which  the  See  of 
Rome  was  already  making  in  the  fourth  century  in 
the  reverential  regard  of  the  Roman  citizens.  The 
same  leading  cause  which  had  produced  this  critical 
revolution  in  popular  sentiment  continued  to  operate 
with  increasing  power  as  every  year  weakened  their 
respect  for  the  secular  rule.  The  episcopal  chair  of 
Rome  had  become  a  prize  for  an  ambition  which 
could  not  always  be  confined  to  spiritual  objects. 
The  prelate  of  the  most  venerable  of  cities  could 
henceforth  hardly  resist  the  temptation  to  encroach 
upon  his  fellow-bishops.  The  temporal  fall  of  the 
Imperial  metropolis  tended  to  throw  a  brighter  light 
upon  her  ecclesiastical  claims.  The  separation  of 
the  East  and  the  West  had  already  enhanced  the 


S/.  Leo  the  Great, 


religious  dignity  of  the  ancient  capital.  The  great 
Eastern  patriarchates  of  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and 
Jerusalem  had  up  to  that  time  all  held  themselves 
equal,  if  not  superior  to  Eome,  Constantinople  had 
even  assumed  certain  airs  of  supremacy  over  all. 
The  General  Councils  which  bad  defined  the  Faith 
at  Nicsea  and  Constantinople  had  been  composed 
almost  wholly  of  Orientals.  The  great  Doctors  of 
the  Church,  the  men  who  had  defended  or  diffused 
the  common  Faith,  had  been  mostly  Grreeks  by  origin 
and  language.  None  had  been  Eomans,  and  it  was 
rarely,  till  the  fourth  century,  that  any  one  of  them 
had  written  in  the  Latin  tongue.  When  Athanasius, 
exiled  from  Alexandria,  came  to  Italy  a.nd  Graul,  it 
was  three  years  before  he  could  learn  enough  of  the 
language  of  the  West  to  address  its  congregations 
in  public.  But  this  curious  fact  shows  that  the 
Western  Christians  were  now  no  longer  the  little 
Greek  colony  of  the  first  and  second  centuries. 
Christianity  had  become  the  national  religion  of  the 
native  races.  The  Romans  might  now  feel  that  they 
were  becoming  again  a  people ;  that  their  glorious 
career  was  assuming,  as  it  were,  a  new  point  of 
departure.  The  Phoenix  was  actually  rising  from  its 
ashes.  No  wonder  then  that  the  bishop  of  their  own 
K  2 


132  St.  Leo  the  Great. 


choice,  though  held  perhaps  in  little  account  beyond 
the  ^gean  or  the  Adriatic,  reigned  supreme  in  their 
veneration,  inheriting  as  it  were  the  inviolable  majesty 
of  the  old  tribune  of  the  people,  and  gained  more 
and  more  on  the  estimation  of  all  the  West.  There 
was  no  Church  in  Graul  or  Spain,  none,  except  Eome, 
even  in  Italy,  that  could  boast  to  have  been  founded 
by  an  Apostle ;  but  Eome  was  under  the  protection 
not  of  one  Apostle  only,  but  of  two.  The  most 
cultivated  even  of  the  Pagans  still  repaired  to  Rome 
as  the  capital  of  Western  art  and  literature,  and  the 
rivalry  of  the  two  religions,  supported  on  either  side 
by  all  the  eloquence,  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance, 
which  each  could  muster,  gave  a  peculiar  dignity  of 
a  novel  kind  to  the  spot  on  which  the  Old  World  and 
the  New  seemed  to  have  met  once  for  all  for  combat 
or  for  compromise.  And  there  lay  the  question  of 
questions,  the  solution  of  which  could  not  long  be 
delayed;  should  it  be  a  combat,  deadly,  inter- 
necinal?  or  should  it  be  a  compromise,  a  trans- 
action between  them  ? 

Let  me  ask  you  to  consider  more  closely  with 
me,  what  was  the  nature  of  the  superior  eminence 
which  the  Bishop  of  Rome  was  now  holding  in  the 
city.     Commanding  as  was  the  position  which  his 


6V.  Leo  the  Great.  133 


popular  election  gave  him  in  the  imagination  of  the 
people — of  his  people,  as  we  may  now  call  them — we 
must  not  suppose  that  the  Emperor  had  actually 
conceded  to  him  the  appointment  to  civil  offices,  or 
the  ordering  of  military  affairs.  No,  the  bishop's 
authority  was  still  essentially  spiritual ;  it  consisted 
in  the  dominion  over  men's  thoughts  in  religious 
matters  ;  in  the  direction  of  their  consciences.  It 
was  a  government  by  sentiment ;  and,  of  course,  as 
such  it  was  limited  on  ail  sides.  But  the  fact  was — 
and  there  is  no  fact  more  important  in  estimating 
the  character  of  the  age  before  us — that  the  fifth 
centmy  was  eminently  a  period  when  the  control  of 
human  affairs  had  fallen  under  the  dictates  of  senti- 
ment and  opinion.  Force  had  failed  ;  military  rule 
had  collapsed;  civilization,  it  was  plain,  could  no 
longer  look  to  maintain  itself  by  arms  against  im- 
pending dissolution.  But  behind  its  broken  ranks 
another  power  was  forming  itself  and  creeping 
without  observation  into  the  confidence  of  mankind. 
The  head  of  the  Church  militant  at  Kome,  militant 
against  sins  and  idolatries,  against  spiritual  ignor- 
ance and  barbarism  and  all  the  horrors  in  their  train, 
might  be  likened  in  the  believer's  imagination  to  an 
Imperator  in  the  field,  requiring  implicit  obedience 


134  St,  Leo  the  Great. 


of  the  priests  who  regularly  miDistered  in  sacred 
things  to  the  congregation  placed  under  their  care ; 
of  the  flying  squadrons  of  devotees  and  ascetics  who 
made  incursions  into  the  ranks  of  the  enemy ;  of  the 
trained  divines  who  engaged  in  duel  with  the  select 
champions  of  the  ancient  philosophies,  or  undertook 
the  conversion  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Pagan  invaders. 
The  organization  of  the  Church  was  thus  steadily 
advancing,  with  the  consent  and  support  of  the  mul- 
titude of  believers.  To  Eome,  as  the  centre  of  this 
efficient  discipline,  the  eyes  of  the  faithful  were  most 
constantly  turned.  The  Bishop  of  Eome  became 
more  than  an  ordinary  chief  pastor  of  an  ordinary 
flock ;  he  was,  in  fact,  promptly  accepted  as  the 
commander  of  the  whole  spiritual  armament ;  to  use 
the  phrase  of  a  recent  Cardinal,  when  he  said  to 
them,  March,  they  marched.  The  conduct  of  the 
holy  war,  of  the  defence  of  Eome  and  therewith  of 
all  human  culture,  at  least  of  such  remnant  as  was 
left  of  them,  was  almost  thrust  into  his  hands. 
Hence  it  was  that  the  title  of  Papa  or  Pope,  de- 
rived from  the  East,  where  it  was  apjilied  to  the 
spiritual  father  of  the  people,  was  at  this  time 
voluntarily  assigned  him  by  the  whole  Latin  Church, 
as  a  token  of  superior  honour  and  authority.     Such 


S/.  Leo  the  Great.  135 

spontaneous  concessions  on  the  part  of  the  Church 
may  have  really  outrun  any  conscious  pretensions  of 
the  bishop  himself.  But  Leo,  dating  from  the  year 
440,  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  of  the  Popes  who 
contemplated  a  primacy  of  the  Christian  world. 
Doubtless  this  daring  prelate  did  assume  and  en- 
force a  special  jurisdiction  over  the  other  neigh- 
bouring bishops,  who  were  entitled  the  Suburbica- 
rians,  from  their  proximity  to  the  Italian  capital 
Doubtless,  he  fostered  and  took  advantage  of  the 
disputes  then  so  rife  in  the  Eastern  Church ;  he 
undertook  the  guidance  and  control  of  distant  Coun- 
cils ;  sometimes  he  made  himself  all  the  more  con- 
spicuous by  his  absence,  when  he  claimed  the  right 
to  direct  them  through  his  deputies.  Yet  even  Leo, 
from  whose  reign  the  dogma  of  Papal  supremacy 
must  in  fairness  be  dated,  could  still  little  anticipate 
the  splendid  destiny  which  awaited  his  successors. 
He  put  forth  no  historical  claims  to  power  or  even 
to  precedence ;  nor  did  he  incur  the  mortification  to 
which  he  would  have  been  sometimes  exposed,  had  he 
done  so,  from  the  rebuffs  of  other  prelates  not  mucli 
less  able  nor  much  less  proud  than  himself.  Still, 
the  fact  remains  that  the  great  Leo,  ambitious  and 
imperious  as  we  picture  him,  was  merely  floating  in 


136  St,  Leo  the  Great. 

triumph  on  a  wave  of  popular  sentiment,  which 
was  rising  at  the  moment  to  demand  a  spiritual 
Caesar  to  preside  over  the  Empire  of  Christendom. 

For  at  this  moment  the  popular  instinct  could 
not  fail  to  perceive  how  strongly  the  conscience  of 
the  barbarians  had  been  affected  by  the  spiritual 
majesty  of  Christian  Kome,  The  Northern  hordes 
had  beaten  down  all  armed  resistance.  They  had 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  strength  of  tlie 
Eastern  Empire ;  they  had,  for  a  moment  at  least, 
actually  overcome  the  Western ;  they  had  overrun 
many  of  the  fairest  provinces,  and  had  effected  a 
permanent  lodgment  in  G-aul  and  Spain,  and  still 
more  recently  in  Africa.  Yet  in  all  these  countries, 
rude  as  they  still  were,  they  had  submitted  to  accept 
the  creed  of  the  Grospel.  There  was  no  such  thing 
as  a  barbarian  Paganism  established  within  the  limits 
of  the  Empire  anywhere,  except  perhaps  in  furthest 
Britain.  Such  had  been  the  power  of  Christian 
opinion.  For,  in  fact,  the  barbarians  had  received 
their  first  impressions  of  the  Faith  before  they  settled 
down  as  conquerors  within  the  limits  of  the  Empire. 
They  had  known  something  of  its  missionary  spirit, 
of  its  simple  spirit  of  love  and  justice,  before  they 
found  it  seated  in  pomp  and  power  by  the  side  of 


Sf.  Leo  the  Great.  137 


secular  rulers.  They  found  Eome.  abandoned  by  her 
Caesars  and  her  legions,  standing  erect  under  the 
shield  of  her  priests  and  bishop,  who  spoke  to  them 
of  a  God  of  peace  and  mercy.  Never  had  such  an 
appeal  been  made  to  the  unsophisticated  instincts  of 
human  nature.  So  deeply  had  the  barbarian  hosts 
been  struck  by  the  majesty  of  the  Christian  arma- 
ments, that  they  had  yielded  up  their  ancient  super- 
stitions, abandoned  their  unhallowed  rites,  burnt 
their  abominable  idols,  devoted  themselves  to  the 
singing  of  divine  psalms,  and  tlie  offering  of  the 
holiest  sacrifice.  True,  the  Groths,  both  of  the  East 
and  the  West,  the  Burgundians,  the  Sueves,  the 
Vandals,  had  all,  or  most  of  them  (perhaps  the  Bur- 
gundians should  be  excepted)  embraced  Christianity 
under  the  imperfect  theory  of  the  Arians ;  but, 
heretics  though  they  were,  they  had  imbibed  enough 
of  the  spirit  of  the  true  Faith  to  lay  down  their  arms 
at  the  gates  of  the  Christian  churches,  to  respect  the 
sanctity  of  Christian  Eome,  and  screen  her  from  the 
worst  of  pillage.  Was  not  the  time  now  at  hand 
when  they  might  be  taught  to  embrace  the  Faith  in 
its  integrity,  and  acknowledge  as  divine  the  authorit}^ 
of  such  a  Caesar  as  Leo  ? 

The  attitude  of  spiritual  defiance  which  Eome 


S^.  Leo  the  Great. 


had  assumed  in  the  face  of  the  barbarians,  when  she 
seemed  to  cast  herself  upon  God  and  Christ  as  her 
protectors,  upon  the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul  as  her 
patrons,  upon  her  bishop  or  pope  as  the  minister  of 
the  Divine  government,  constituted,  we  may  readily 
suppose,  a  really  effective  bulwark.  She  continued 
for  at  least  one  generation  free  from  further  aggres- 
sion. Of  the  Northern  peoples  who  had  so  long 
threatened  her,  great  multitudes  had  settled  in  the 
city  and  tbe  provinces  ;  they  had  generally  accepted 
the  Christian  faith,  and  become  absorbed  into  the  mass 
of  believers  ;  they  had  accustomed  the  native  races 
to  regard  the  new-comers  as  friends  rather  than  as 
enemies,  while  they  had  learnt  themselves  to  look  to 
the  native  races  as  their  masters  in  culture  and 
religion,  rather  than  as  objects  of  plunder.  In  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century  the  Eomans  would  have 
anticipated  with  less  alarm  a  second  attack  by  a 
second  Alaric,  connected  as  he  would  be  with  a  great 
portion  of  their  society  by  ties  of  blood  as  well  as  by 
common  baptism.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century  the  Roman  world  was  suddenly  threatened  by 
another  and  a  greater  peril.  The  whole  of  central 
Europe  was  at  the  moment  ravaged  by  the  invasion 
of  the  Huns,  a  horde  of  more  unmitigated  ferocity 


6V.  Leo  the  Great.  139 

than  any  that  had  come  before  them,  of  brutal 
savages  as  well  as  heathens.  The  Groths,  fierce  as 
they  were,  had  shown  from  the  first  that  instinct  of 
moral  culture  which  they  have  transmitted  to  their 
descendants  through  so  many  generations;  for  the 
Groths  of  Alaric  were  generically  the  same  as  the 
Germans,  the  Scandinavians,  the  English  of  modern 
history.  The  Huns  appertained  to  another  race 
altogether :  their  character  has  beea  less  distinctly 
marked;  their  descent  through  later  ages  less  de- 
finitely traced ;  few  modern  peoples  would  thank  us 
for  ascribing  to  them  a  Hunnish  ancestry  ;  let  us  be 
content  with  saying  vaguely,  they  were  the  Cossacks 
of  the  olden  time.  Now  these  Huns  or  Cossacks 
were  overrunning  the  greater  part  of  central  Eiu-ope. 
Their  progress  had  been  everywhere  marked  by 
atrocities  more  signal  than  any  that  had  been  in- 
flicted by  the  goodnatured  tliough  greedy  Teutons ; 
they  had  swallowed  up  everything,  they  had  pro- 
duced nothing.  Defying  all  the  influences  of  Southern 
creeds  and  civilization,  they  had  proved  themselves 
untamed  and  untameable,  inhuman,  and  if  it  be 
permitted  to  any  one  of  Grod's  creatures  to  say  so 
of  another,  anti-human.  Attila,  their  leader,  had 
vaunted  himself  as  the  Scourge  of  God  ;  it  was  only 


140  S^.  Leo  the  Great. 

as  the  arbitrary  wielder  of  a  scourge  that  he  re- 
cognised Deity  at  all ;  it  was  only  under  the  form  of 
a  sword  that  he  even  pretended  to  worship  Him.  His 
fury  was  the  more  exasperated  by  the  check  he  had 
received  in  the  gallant  defence  of  Orleans,  and  at  the 
great  battle  of  Chalons,  which  had  liberated  Graul 
from  his  sweeping  devastations,  and  hurled  his  reck- 
less warriors  in  confusion  across  the  Ehine.  It  was 
at  Cologne,  and  apparently  at  this  very  period,  that 
he  executed  the  brutal  massacre  from  which  has 
sprung  the  legend,  variously  related,  of  the  eleven 
thousand  martyred  virgins  of  Britain.  It  is  a  pretty 
story,  known,  no  doubt,  to  many  of  my  hearers,  and 
worth  the  reading  of  all ;  but  the  germ  of  truth  con- 
tained in  it  is  but  slender,  though  some  truth  there 
certainly  is.  I  accept  at  least  the  investigation  of 
it  made  by  no  less  a  critic  than  Cardinal  Wiseman, 
who,  seeking  to  maintain  its  substantial  veracity, 
has,  I  allow,  succeeded  in  showing  that,  on  this  very 
spot  and  at  this  very  time,  Attila  put  to  the  sword 
a  great  crowd  of  victims  whom  he  had  probably  borne 
off  with  him  from  Graul ;  but  they  were  not  eleven 
thousand  in  number,  nor  were  they  martyrs  to  the 
Faith,  nor  may  they  claim  the  honourable  title  of 
virgins ;  for  they  were  an  uncounted  multitude  of  all 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  141 

ages  and  either  sex,  as  some  existing  remains  are 
said  still  to  demonstrate,  who  were  slain  not  for  their 
Christian  Faith,  but  from  mere  lust  of  slaughter. 

Such,  however,  was  Attila,  the  Scourge  of  God ; 
and  such  the  trembling  people  of  the  South  well 
knew  him  to  be.  It  required  no  stretch  of  the 
imagination  to  depict  him  in  the  still  darker  colours 
of  popular  tradition.  Repulsed  from  Graul,  he  re- 
appeared two  years  later,  south  of  the  Alps.  Aetius, 
who  had  then  baffled  him,  was  now  charged  with 
the  defence  of  Italy ;  but  his  forces  were  far  away  on 
the  northern  frontier.  The  Burgundians  and  Visi- 
goths, who  had  aided  him  in  the  defence  of  Graul, 
gave  him  no  support  at  a  distance  from  their  own 
territories.  The  courtiers  of  the  cowardly  Emperor 
insinuated  that  he  was  a  traitor,  and  the  dubious 
charge  has  found  a  place  in  history;  but  in  all 
periods  of  national  disaster  the  first  cry  is, '  Treachery.' 
Aetius  has  not  unfitly  been  designated  '  the  last  of 
the  Romans,'  and  we  would  not  willingly  lend  an  ear 
to  such  an  imputation  against  his  Roman  virtue. 
There  was,  however,  another  Roman  at  hand,  not 
unworthy  of  the  crisis.  Leo  himself  was  a  Roman  ; 
at  least,  he  was  a  native  of  an  Etruscan  village  a  few 
miles  from  Rome.     It  was  to  Leo  that  the  citizens 


142  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

fortunately  turned,  in  this  their  dire  extremity,  to 
save  them,  not  by  arms,  but  by  prayers ;  not  by  the 
majesty  of  the  Empire,  but  by  the  majesty  of  the 
Christian  profession  and  priesthood.  To  Leo  they 
had  already  turned  on  a  former  occasion,  when  their 
see  had  fallen  vacant,  and  none  but  the  Bishop  of 
Eome,  as  they  were  assured,  could  reconcile  the  quarrel 
between  two  of  their  rival  generals.  Straightway 
the  clergy,  the  senate,  and  the  people,  with  one 
united  voice,  had  then  raised  Leo,  even  in  his 
absence,  to  the  vacant  seat;  and  the  boldness  and 
firmness  with  which  he  had  in  his  high  office  com- 
bined the  Churchman  and  the  patriot,  had  inspired 
both  Christians  and  Pagans  with  unbounded  admira- 
tion and  confidence.  At  the  crisis  now  impending, 
while  they  deputed  the  prefect  Try ge tins  and  the 
consular  Avienus  to  represent  the  secular  government, 
they  joined  with  these  illustrious  personages  their 
chosen  bishop,  to  complete  their  embassy,  and  stand 
between  them  and  the  heathen  as  the  minister  of 
God  and  the  Church.  The  historians  throw  the 
prefect  and  the  consular  altogether  into  th^  shade, 
and  give  all  the  glory  of  the  event  to  Leo,  pope  and 
bishop.  To  Leo  they  attribute  the  dismay  of  the 
barbarian,  when  he  beheld  the  man  of  Grod  appear 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  143 

unarmed  in  his  wild  encampment,  robed,  as  we  may 
suppose  from  the  remains  found  in  after  ages  in  his 
sepulchre,  in  broidered  pall  and  purple  chasuble,  and 
the  mitre  on  his  head ;  ^  when  he  was  reminded  that 
the  conqueror  who  had  entered  Kome  before  him 
had  not  survived  his  unholy  triumph  the  space  of 
one  year.  It  was  reported,  and  easily  believed,  that 
the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul  had  appeared  to  Attila 
in  a  vision,  and  warned  him  to  refrain  from  the 
attack.  Whether  he  was  loaded  with  presents  by 
way  of  tribute — whether  he  received  further  assurance 
that  the  Emperor's  sister,  who  had  been  formally 
betrothed  to  him,  should  be  duly  transmitted  to  his 
palace  beyond  the  Danube — it  remains  at  least  on 
record  that  Attila^  the  Scourge  of  God,  stayed  his 
terrible  career,  and  withdrew  beyond  the  Alps.  His 
sudden  and  mysterious  death,  so  quickly  following, 
marks  an  epoch  in  European  history.  The  Huns,  or 
Cossacks,  have  never  again  made  themselves  quite  so 
formidable  to  civilized  society. 


'  Th^e  particulars  are  certified  by  Thierry  (^Hist.  d' Attila, 
ii.  210)  *  om  an  ancient  Life  of  the  Saints  : — '  Erat  indutus 
pontificalibus  indumentis,  scilicet  plan  eta  sive  casula  lata  more 
antiquo,  et  purpura  coloris  castanei.  .  .  .  Super  humero  dextro 
crux  parva  rubri  coloris  qufe  erat  pallii  pontificalis,  et  aliam 
crucem  paulo  longiorem  ejusdem  pallii  supra  pectus.  .  .  .   Telle 


144  '^^-  Leo  the  Great. 

It  was  not  only  as  a  great  ruler  and  administrator 
of  the  Church,  as  one  whose  abilities  fully  answered 
to  his  opportunities  for  the  foundation  of  an  aggres- 
sive ecclesiastical  supremacy,  that  Leo  holds  the 
most  prominent  place  in  his  generation  of  Church- 
men. The  name  of  this  pontiff  is  associated  also 
with  all  the  leading  polemics  of  the  day.  The  deter- 
mination of  the  Church  Councils  in  the  matters  of 
Nestorius  and  Eutyches  seems  to  have  been  mainly 
influenced  by  his  authority ;  it  was  to  his  decision  at 
least  that  the  leaders  of  the  Eastern  Church  were 
too  easily  induced  to  submit  their  own  irreconcilable 
differences,  to  many  of  which  Western  orthodoxy 
was  generally  indifferent.  Under  his  influence  the 
Roman  See  was  permitted  to  assume  the  spiritual 
presidency  of  a  general  council ;  all  its  acts  had  run 
in  the  name  of  '  Leo,  Bishop  of  the  Universal  Church,' 
or  *  Leo,  the  blessed  and  universal  Patriarch  of  the 
great  city  of  Rome.'     Nevertheless,  the  apostolic  See 

est  la  description  des  vetemens  pontificaiix  avec  lesquels  saint 
Leon  fut  enseveli,  et  qu'on  trouva  dans  sa  tombe  lors  de  la 
translation  de  ses  reliques.  On  en  pent  voir  tout  le  detail  dans 
les  Bollandistes  4  la  date  du  11  avril.  Nous  devons  ^  ce  proc^s- 
verbal  de  translation  d'avoir  pu  decrire  le  costume  que  portait 
saint  Leon  jl  I'audience  d'Attila,  puisque  c'etaient  1^  ses  habits 
pontificaux,  et  que  son  biographe  nous  dit  qu'il  aborda  le  roi  des 
Huns  en  costume  pontifical,  augustiore  haHtu.' 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  145 

of  Eome  had  not  been  able  to  reduce  Constantinople 
to  the  level  of  other  non-apostolic  chairs.  The 
Eastern  prelates,  after  the  fashion  of  the  East,  were 
willing  to  use  complimentary  language,  such  as  might 
convey  to  the  West  ideas  which  they  did  not  prac- 
tically accept  themselves.  The  court  language  of 
Constantinople  bore  a  different  significance  among 
the  subtle  Grreeks  from  what  it  seemed  to  imply  to 
the  simpler  and  more  straightforward  Komans.  But 
in  fact,  both  parties  might  be  conscious  of  this  dif- 
ference, and  count  upon  taking  their  own  advantage 
of  it.  The  progress  of  the  Papacy  in  the  West  was 
liable  to  no  possible  misconception.  Leo  wrested 
by  main  force,  it  may  be  said,  the  primacy  of  Graul 
from  Hilary,  the  Archbishop  of  Aries,  and  cut  off 
that  distinguished  prelate  himself  from  communion 
with  Eome ;  *  inasmuch,'  so  he  said,  '  as  he  refuseth 
to  be  any  longer  subject  to  the  blessed  Peter.'  He 
prevailed  on  the  feeble  Emperor,  Valentinian  III.,  to 
condemn  his  opponent  as  a  traitor,  in  an  edict  in 
which  '  the  whole  world '  was  required  to  acknow- 
ledge *the  Eoman  See  as  its  director  and  governor,' 
and  which  further  decreed  that  henceforth  not  only 
'no  Gallic  bishops,  but  no  bishop  of  any  other  pro- 

L 


146  S^.  Leo  the  Great. 

vince,  be  permitted,  in  contradiction  to  ancient 
custom,  to  do  anything  without  the  authority  of 
the  venerable  pope  of  the  eternal  city.' ' 

But,  to  pass  over  subjects  hardly  suitable  to  oui* 
hasty  historical  sketch,  I  will  only  refer  to  the  ser- 
mons which  this  great  divine  addressed  to  his  own 
peculiar  flock  at   Rome,  to  help  us  in  forming  an 

'  Mr.   Greenwood,  who  refers   to  this  edict  in   the    Codex 
I'heodosianus,  remarks  upon  it  in  very  considerate  terms  : — 

*  Both  Leo  the  Pontiff  and  Hilary  the  Archbishop  belonged  to 
that  noble  company  of  combatants  for  religion  and  virtue  that 
often  springs  up,  as  it  were,  from  the  earth,  when  vice  and  cor- 
ruption appear  triumphant  in  the  world.  But  they  fought  in 
the  same  cause  with  different  weapons:  Hilary  wielded  the 
"sword  of  the  spirit,"  in  preference  to  that  of  the  flesh ;  Leo 
believed  himself  justified  in  using  either,  as  occasion  might 
require.  Both  desired  "to  live  in  unity  and  godly  love  with 
the  brethren,"  But  Hilary  grounded  his  hope  of  success  upon 
the  maintenance  of  the  Christian  law;  Leo  upon  the  acqui- 
sition of  extrinsic  power  to  suppress  and  punish  disobedience. 
Such  opposite  views  of  the  conditions  of  Christian  fellowship 
could  never  meet  but  in  conflict  with  each  other.  But  Hilary 
had  the  advantage  of  his  adversary,  for  he  could  forgive ;  to  the 
other  nothing  was  gained  till  he  extorted  an  absolute  surrender 
to  the  Petrine  claims.  To  this  Hilary  could  not  consent,  and 
he  died  at  the  early  age  of  forty-eight,  out  of  the  communion 
of  Rome,  but  out  of  no  other.  His  admirable  brethren  took 
little  heed  of  the  frowns  of  Rome :  they  continued  in  inter- 
course with  him ;  the  privileges  of  his  metropolitan  church 
remained  unimpaired  ;  and  the  name  of  Hilary  of  Aries  figures 
to  this  day  in  the  Roman  calendar  by  the  side  of  that  of  his 
canonized  opponent.' — Cathedra  Petriy  i.  355. 


6V.  Leo  the  Great.  147 


idea  of  the  state  of  Christian  sentiment  which 
prevailed  in  the  period  now  before  us.^  The 
bishops  of  Constantinople  and  other  Eastern  cities 
had  overflowed  in  popular  discourses,  but  the 
prelates  of  the  West  seem,  for  whatever  reason,  to 
have  been  far  more  reticent.  Leo  is  the  first  of  the 
Eoman  pontiffs  whose  addresses  from  the  pulpit  have 

1  I  allow  myself  the  pleasure  of  presenting  the  reader  with 
the  fine  sketch  of  Leo's  character  given  by  Milman,  Sist.  of 
Latin  Chwt'ch,  bk.  ii.  ch.  iv. : — 

'  Leo  was  a  Roman  in  sentiment  as  in  birth.  All  that  sur- 
vived of  Rome,  of  her  unbounded  ambition,  her  inflexible  per- 
severance, her  dignity  in  defeat,  her  haughtiness  of  language, 
her  belief  in  her  own  eternity  and  in  her  indefeasible  title  to 
universal  dominion,  her  respect  for  traditionary  and  written 
law,  and  of  unchangeable  custom,  might  seem  concentred  in 
him  alone.  The  union  of  the  Churchman  and  the  Roman  is 
singularly  displayed  in  his  sermon  on  the  day  of  St.  Peter  and 
St.  Paul ;  their  conjoint  authority  was  that  double  title  to 
obedience  on  which  he  built  his  claim  to  power,  but  chiefly  as 
the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  for  whom  he  asserted  a  proto-Aposto- 
lic  dignity.  From  Peter  and  through  Peter  all  the  other 
Apostles  derived  their  power.  Nor  less  did  he  assert  the 
destined  perpetuity  of  Rome,  who  had  only  obtained  her  tem- 
poral autocracy  to  prepare  the  way,  and  as  a  guarantee  for  her 

greater  spiritual  supremacy Pagan  Rome  had  been  the 

head  of  the  heathen  world ;  the  empire  of  her  divine  religion 

was  to  transcend  that  of  her  worldly  dominion It  was 

because  Rome  was  the  capital  of  the  world,  that  the  chief  of 
the  Apostles  was  chosen  to  be  her  teacher,  in  order  that  from 
the  head  of  the  world  the  light  of  truth  might  be  revealed  o>  ei 
all  the  earth.' 

L  2 


148  SL  Leo  the  Great. 

descended  to  posterity.  Of  these  sermons  indeed 
there  remain  to  us  more  than  a  hundred  in  number. 
They  dwell,  some  on  the  primacy  of  St.  Peter  and 
the  supremacy  of  the  Eoman  See,  some  on  the  mystery 
of  our  Lord's  nativity  and  His  divine  nature,  some 
on  the  lessons  of  humility  and  obedience  inculcated 
by  His  holy  life ;  nor  are  they  silent  on  the  redemp- 
tion of  man  through  His  death  and  passion,  and  the 
sanctifying  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit.^  But  they  are 
especially  urgent  on  the  merits  of  charity  and  fast- 
ing. There  are  few  of  them  that  do  not  glance  at 
least  on  one  or  both  of  these  favourite  graces,  while 
they  are  plainly  defective  in  the  grounds  on  which, 
at  least  by  implication,  they  place  them.  For  they 
enjoin  them  simply  as  formal  observances  due  to  the 
command  of  Grod  Himself,  with  little  or  no  reference 
to  any  duty  to  one's  own  moral  nature  or  to  one's 
neighbours'  happiness,  to  the  duty  of  personal  self- 
control,  or  of  compassion  for  our  fellow  creatures; 
with  little  or  none  throughout  to  the  practical  lesson 

'  In  the  treatise  Be  Vocatione  Omnium  Gentium  Leo  enforces 
very  fully  and  elaborately  the  Augiistinian  doctrines  of  Grace 
and  Freewill,  and  is  sorely  exercised  in  explaining  the  condem- 
nation of  unbaptized  infants: — * Verumtamen  de  hac  altitu- 
dine  discretionis  Dei  non  conturbabitnr  cor  humilitatis  nostras, 
sifirma  ac  stabili  fide  omne  judicium  Dei  esse  justumcredamus.' 
— ii.  21. 


St  Leo  the  Great.  149 

of  our  blessed  Lord's  example,  who  '  went  about  doing 
good,' '  or  to  the  Divine  process  by  which  fallen  man 
is  justified  and  reconciled  to  his  Creator.  Such,  to 
my  apprehension,  is  the  moral  defect  of  St.  Leo's 
teaching  which  I  am  bound  to  notice,  at  the  same 
time  that  I  remark  its  comparative  freedom  from 
the  errors  which  we  associate  with  so  much  of  the 
teaching  of  the  fifth  century. 

But  I  have  a  further  and  a  special  object  in 
making  this  remark.  It  will  be  admitted,  I  trust, 
without  entering  upon  disquisitions  which  would  be 
inappropriate  to  this  occasion,  that  the  corruptions 
of  Christian  faith  against  which  our  own  national 
Church  and  many  others  rose  indignantly  at  the 
Eeformation  had  for  the  most  part  struck  their  foun- 
dations deep  in  the  course  of  the  fifth  century ;  that 
though  they  had  sprung  up  even  from  an  earlier 
period,  and  though  they  developed  more  in  some 
directions,  and  assumed  more  fixity,  in  the  darker 
times  that  followed,  yet   the  working  of  the  true 

*  The  common  defect  of  excessive  self-introspection  appears 
strikingly  in  the  popiilar  treatise  on  the  '  Imitation  of  Christ,' 
in  which  there  is  no  reference  whatever  to  our  Lord's  example 
of  active  benevolence  in  going  about  doing  good.  '  Multum 
facit  qui  multum  diligit '  is  the  sum  of  all  the  author  has  to  say 
de  operibus  ex  caritate  factis.  See  Thomas  ^  Kempis,  Be  Imit. 
Ch?nst.,  lib.  i.  c.  15. 


150  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

Christian  leaven  among  the  masses  was  never  more 
faint,  the  approximation  of  Christian  usage  to  the 
manners  and  customs  of  Paganism  never  really  closer, 
than  in  the  age  of  which  we  are  now  speaking.  We 
have  before  us  many  significant  examples  of  the 
facility  with  which  the  most  intelligent  of  the 
Pagans  accepted  the  outward  rite  of  Christian  bap- 
tism, and  made  a  nominal  profession  of  the  Faith, 
while  they  retained  and  openly  practised,  without 
rebuke,  without  remark,  with  the  indulgence  even  of 
genuine  believers,  the  rites  and  usages  of  the  Pagan- 
ism they  pretended  to  have  abjured.  We  find 
abundant  records  of  the  fact  that  personages  high  in 
office,  such  as  consuls  and  other  magistrates,  while 
administering  the  laws  by  which  the  old  idolatries 
were  proscribed,  actually  performed  Pagan  rites  and 
even  erected  public  statues  to  Pagan  divinities. 
Still  more  did  men,  high  in  the  respect  of  their 
fellow-Christians,  allow  themselves  to  cherish  senti- 
ments utterly  at  variance  with  the  definitions  of  the 
Church.  Take  the  instance  of  the  illustrious  bishop 
Synesius.  Was  he  a  Christian,  was  he  a  Pagan,  who 
shall  say  ?  He  was  famous  in  the  schools  of  Alexan- 
dria as  a  man  of  letters,  a  teacher  of  the  ancient 
philosophies,  an  admirer  of  the  Pagan  Hypatia.     The 


S^.  Leo  the  G^^eat.  151 

Christian  people  of  Ptolemais,  enchanted  with  his 
talents,  demand  him  for  their  bishop.     He  protests — 
not  indeed  that  he  is  an  unbeliever — but  that  his 
life  and  habits  are  not  suitable  to  so  high  an  office. 
He   has   a  wife   whom  he   cannot  abandon,  as  the 
manners  of  the  age  might  require  of  him ;    whom  he 
will  not  consort  with  secretly,  as  the  manners  of  the 
age  would,  it  seems,  allow.     '  But  further,  I  cannot 
believe,'  he  adds,  'that  the  human   soul  has  been 
breathed  into  flesh  and  blood  ;    I  will  not  teach  that 
this  everlasting  world  of  matter  is  destined  to  anni- 
hilation ;    the  resurrection,  as  taught  by  the  Church, 
seems  to  me  a  doubtful  and  questionable  doctrine. 
I  am  a  philosopher,  and  cannot  preach  to  the  people 
popularly.'     In  short,  he  maintains  to   all  appear- 
ance, that  if  he  is  a  believer  in  Jesus  Christ  he  is  a 
follower  of  Plato;    and  such  doubtless  were  many 
others.      The  people  leave   him   his  wife   and   his 
opinions,  and  insist  that  he  shall  be  their  bishop.    He 
retains  his  family  ties,  his  philosophy,  his  Platonism, 
his  rationalism,  and  accepts  the  government  of  the 
Church  notwithstanding.     Again  we  ask,  was  Syne- 
sius  a  Christian  or  a  Pagan  ?    The  instance  of  such  a 
bishop,  one  probably  among  many,  is  specially  signi- 
ficant ;  but  the  same  question  arises  with  regard  to 


152  St,  Leo  the  Great. 

other  men  of  eminence  of  the  period.  Was  Boethius, 
a  century  later,  the  imitator  of  Cicero,  Christian  or 
Pagan  ?  Was  Simplicius,  the  commentator  on  Plato? 
Was  Ausonius,  the  playful  poet  and  amiable  friend 
of  the  bishop  Paulinus,  who  celebrates  Christ  in  one 
poem,  and  scatters  his  allusions  to  Pagan  mythology 
indiscriminately  in  many  others  ?  We  know  that 
Libanius,  the  intimate  friend  and  correspondent  of 
Basil,  was  a  Pagan  of  the  Pagans ;  but  he  did  not 
on  that  account  forfeit  the  confidence  of  a  sainted 
father  of  the  Christian  Church.  So  indifferent  as 
Christians  seem  to  have  been  at  this  period  to  their 
own  creed,  so  indifferent  to  the  creed  of  their  friends 
and  associates,  we  cannot  wonder  if  it  has  left  us  few 
or  but  slight  traces  of  a  vital  belief  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  Divine  redemption. 

We  must  make  indeed  large  allowance  for  the 
intellectual  trials  of  an  age  of  transition,  when  it 
was  not  given  to  every  one  to  see  his  way  between 
the  demands  urged  upon  an  intelligent  faith  by  the 
traditions  of  a  brilliant  past  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  intimations  of  an  obscure  and  not  a  cheerful 
future  on  the  other.  We  hardly  realize,  perhaps, 
the  pride  with  which  the  schools  of  Athens  and 
Alexandria  still  regarded  their   thousand  years   of 


SL  Leo  the  Great.  153 

academic  renown,  while  the   Christian  Church  was 

slowly  building  up  the  recent  theological  systems  on 

which  its  own  foundations  were  to  be  secured  for  the 

ages  to  follow.     We  need  not  complain  of  Leo  and 

other  Christian  Doctors,  if  they  shrank,  as  I  think 

they  did,  from  rushing  again  into  polemics  with  the 

remnant  of  the  philosophers,  whose  day,  they  might 

think,  was  sure  to  close  at  no  distant  date.     But  the 

real  corruption  of  the  age  was  shown  in  the  unstinted 

adoption  of  Pagan  usages  in  the  ceremonial  of  the 

Christian  Church,  with  all  the  baneful  effects  they 

could  not  fail  to  produce  on  the  spiritual  training  of 

the  people.     There  are  not  wanting  indeed  passage^ 

in  the  popular  teaching  of  St.  Leo,  in  which  he  beats 

the  air  with  angry  denunciations  of  auguries  and 

sortilege    and    magic,  stigmatizes    idolatry    as   the 

worship  of  demons,  and  the  devil  as  the  father  of 

Pagan  lies.^     But  neither  Leo,  nor,  I  think,  the  con- 

'  In  his  26tli  Sermon  the  Pontiff  formally  reproves  the  'im- 
piety,' then  common,  of  turning  and  bowing  to  the  East  as  the 
quarter  in  which  the  sun  rises.  'NonnuUi  etiam  Christiani 
adeo  se  religiose  facere  putant,  ut  priusquam  ad  B.  Petri  Apos- 
toli  Basilicam,  qu£e  uni  Deo  vivo  et  vero  est  dedicata,  perve- 
niant,  superatis  gradibus,  quibus  ad  suggestum  ar^e  superioris 
ascenditur,  converso  corpore  ad  nascentem  se  Solem  reflectant, 
et  curvatis  cervicibus  in  honorem  se  splendidi  orbis  inclinent.' 
The  altar  at  St.  Peter's  was  then,  we  must  suppose,  as  now,  at 
the  western  end  of  the  church. 


154  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

temporary  Doctors  of  the  Church,  seem  to  have  had 
an  adequate  sense  of  the  process  by  which  the  whole 
essence  of  Paganism  was,  throughout  their  age,  con- 
stantly percolating  the  ritual  of  the  Church  and 
the  hearts  of  the  Christian  multitude.  It  is  not  to 
these  that  we  can  look  for  a  warning  that  the  fasts 
prescribed  by  the  Church  had  their  parallel  in  the 
abstinence  imposed  by  certain  Pagan  creeds,  and 
required  to  be  guarded  and  explained  to  the  people 
in  their  true  Christian  significance ;  that  the 
Monachism  they  extolled  so  warmly,  and  which 
spread  so  rapidly,  was  in  its  origin  a  purely  Pagan 
institution,  common  to  the  religions  of  India,  Thibet, 
and  Syria,  with  much,  no  doubt,  to  excuse  its  extra- 
vagance in  the  hapless  condition  of  human  life  at  the 
period^  but  with  little  or  nothing  to  justify  it  in  the 
charters  of  our  Christian  belief;  that  the  canonizing 
of  saints  and  martyrs,  the  honours  paid  them  and 
the  trust  reposed  in  them,  were  simply  a  revival  of 
the  old  Pagan  mythologies ;  that  the  multiplication 
of  formal  ceremonies,  with  processions  and  lights  and 
incense  and  vestments,  with  images  and  pictures  and 
votive  offerings,  was  a  mere  Pagan  appeal  to  the 
senses,  such  as  can  never  fail  to  enervate  man's  moral 
fibre ;  that,  in  short,  the  general  aspect  of  Christian 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  155 

devotion,  as  it  met  the  eye  of  the  observer,  was  a 
faint  and  rather  frivolous  imitation  of  the  old  Pagan 
ritual,  the  object  of  which  from  first  to  last  was  not 
to  instruct,  or  elevate  man's  nature,  but  simply  to 
charm  away  the  ills  of  life  by  adorning  and  beautify- 
ing his  present  existence. 

Surely,  we  must  complain  that  all  this  manifest 
evil  was  not  denounced  at  the  time  by  the  teachers 
of  the  Christian  Church — nay,  that  it  was  rather 
fostered  and  favoured  by  them.  But  we  may  detect 
perhaps  the  instinctive  feeling  which  blinded  the  un- 
instructed  people,  and  clouded  the  keener  sense  even 
of  their  rulers.  Fallen  as  she  was  from  her  high 
estate,  as  a  temporal  sovereign,  the  Empire  might 
still  be  regarded  as  the  last  retreat  of  ancient  civili- 
zation, the  last  depository  of  the  world's  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  treasures.  Much  as  she  had  lost  of 
power,  of  wealth,  of  brilliancy,  of  influence  and 
authority — -though  her  gold  had  become  dim,  and  the 
glory  of  her  towers  and  temples  covered  with  dust 
and  disgraced  with  smoke, — yet  she  seemed  to  hold 
on  by  the  skirts  to  the  Divine  protection,  which  over- 
awed the  powers  of  the  world,  and  turned  the  bar- 
barian assailants  into  admirers  and  worshippers.  The 
Groths  had  crossed  the  Alps  and  Apennines  breathing 


156  St.  Leo  the  Great. 

fire  and  slaughter  against  her,  but  the  Groths  had 
accepted  her  humaner  teaching,  had  filtered  into 
the  mass  of  her  population,  and  given  it  courage  to 
baffle  the  Huns,  the  Avars,  and  the  Alans.  These, 
too,  might  in  turn  be  expected  to  succumb  to  her 
enlightening  influence.  For  Rome  still  called 
herself  the  Eternal  City,  and  so  we  find  her  still 
designated  even  by  Christian  preachers  of  the 
fifth  century.  Under  Leo  she  spoke  more  confi- 
dently than  ever,  as  one  having  spiritual  authority. 
And  so  the  instinct  of  the  Imperial  people  now  urged 
them  to  throw  a  veil  over  all  they  had  lost  of  bril- 
liancy and  glory,  and  to  save  at  least  the  little  that 
remained.  They  looked  to  the  present  only ;  they 
averted  their  eyes  from  the  future.  The  Christian 
Church,  falling  in  with  this  popular  feeling,  clutched 
at  the  remains  of  the  earlier  culture,  and  ignored,  as 
it  would  seem,  all  further  development  of  its  powers. 
The  creeds  of  antiquity,  as  you  will  have  observed, 
never  looked  forward.  They  all  began  with  the 
vision  of  a  Golden  Age,  from  which  every  step  in 
advance  was  only  a  step  downwards.  The  progress 
of  truth  and  righteousness,  the  preparation  of  man 
from  age  to  age  for  a  higher  state  of  being,  formed 
no  part  of  the  creeds  of  Paganism.     They  formed  no 


SL  Leo  the  G^^eat.  1 5  7 

part  of  the  aspirations  even  of  the  philosophers. 
Even  an  Epicurus  and  a  Lucretius,  those  ultra- 
Darwinians,  who  held  that  man  sprang  from  earth 
and  stones,  '  Tellus  quern  dura  crearat,'  asserted  with 
a  sigh  that  his  moral  growth  had  soon  reached  its 
height,  and  could  henceforth  only  dwindle.  Nothing 
remained  for  the  Pagan  but  to  acquiesce  in  this 
hopeless  condition,  and  preserve  while  he  could  the 
position  he  had  for  the  moment  attained.  And  so 
sadly  were  the  Christians  of  the  fifth  century  pa- 
ganized, so  thoroughly  had  they  imbibed  the  ruling 
sentiment  of  the  masses  around  them,  that  they  too 
looked  now  no  further  than  the  present,  imagined 
no  progress,  no  development,  no  extension  of  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  beyond  the  narrow  horizon  that 
lay  around  them.  They  were  content  that  the  limits 
of  Christian  empire  should  remain  stationary,  while 
the  spirit  of  Christian  belief  was  actually  declining 
among  them.  For  so  it  must  always  be :  if  the 
Gospel  ceases  at  any  time  to  be  an  advancing  power 
in  the  world,  an  aggressive  power  upon  the  frontier 
of  darkness  and  unbelief,  it  will  assuredly  decline  in 
force  and  vitality,  its  salt  will  have  lost  its  savour. 
But,  as  I  cannot  but  think,  even  the  leaders  of  the 
Church  were  at  this  period  blind  to  this  condition  of 


158  St.  Leo  the  Great. 


its  being.  They  made  no  advance  beyond  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Eoman  world ;  they  made  no  aggression 
upon  the  blank  domains  of  barbarism  in  the  distance. 
They  sought  to  maintain  the  actual  order  of  afifairs 
without  regard  to  the  future.  Nay,  they  averted 
their  eyes,  and  shrank  from  looking  to  the  future. 
They  were  afraid  of  any  spiritual  movement  which 
should  extend  the  limits  of  their  dark  outlook.  They 
scouted  the  more  spiritual  reformers  of  the  age, 
whom  Grod  will  never  suffer  to  be  altogether  wanting 
in  His  Church,  and  branded  them  as  heretics,  while 
they  suppressed  the  testimony  of  their  teaching. 
Their  cry  was  still,  Save  what  remains  of  society, 
what  remains  of  civilization,  what  remains  of 
moral  and  religious  culture.  Make  friends  with 
the  votaries  even  of  the  worser  creeds.  Close  your 
ranks,  all  ye  peoples,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  to  keep 
off  at  least  the  barbarians  who  will  root  out  the 
faith  of  us  all.  Enough  for  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof! — Such,  I  imagine,  was  the  hysterical  cry 
which  went  forth  from  the  multitude,  half  Christian 
half  Pagan,  who  met  together  in  those  unhappy 
days  to  confuse  the  Feast  of  the  Nativity  with  the 
Feast  of  the  Saturnalia,  the  Feast  of  the  Pm^ifi- 
cation  with  the  Feast  of  the  Lupercalia,  the  Feast  of 


S^.  Leo  the  Great.  159 

Rogations  with  the  Feast  of  the  Ambarvalia ;  to  in- 
stal  saints  and  martyrs  in  the  temples  of  demi-gods  ; 
to  place  the  long-cherished  shrines  of  Ceres,  Minerva, 
even  of  Venus,  under  the  invocation  of  the  Mother  of 
Jesus.  Such  was  the  compromise  now  unconsciously 
effected  between  the  Old  world  and  the  New  ;  such 
the  unhappy  influence  of  ideas  and  fancies  which  had 
survived  a  positive  conviction. 

Paganism  was  assimilated,  not  extirpated,  and 
Christendom  has  suffered  from  it  more  or  less  ever 
since  ;  but  she  had  brighter  days  at  hand  already : 
and  if  you  will  indulge  me  with  listening  to  another 
lecture,  I  hope  at  our  next  meeting  to  open  to  you 
a  more  cheerful  stage  in  her  progress. 


LECTUEE  IV. 

ST.  GKEaORY  AND  THE  EARLY  MISSIONS  OF 
THE  CHURCH. 

In  my  last  lecture  I  drew  a  sketch  of  the  Church 
in  the  fifth  century,  in  which  I  represented  it  as 
shrinking  from  its  office  as  the  converter  of  the 
nations,  and  confining  itself  ignobly  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  remnant  of  social  and  spiritual  culture 
which  had  thus  far  survived  the  attacks  of  the  bar- 
barian and  the  decline  of  the  ancient  civilization. 
With  this  special  object  before  it,  I  pourtrayed  it 
as  content  to  make  terms  with  what  survived  of 
Paganism,  content  to  lose  even  more  than  it  gained 
in  an  unholy  alliance  with  superstition  and  idolatry ; 
enticing,  no/  doubt,  many  of  the  vulgar,  and  some 
even  of  the  more  intelligent,  to  a  nominal  acceptance 
of  the  Christian  Faith,  but  conniving  at  the  sm*- 
render  by  the  great  mass  of  its  own  baptized  members 
of  the  highest  and  purest  of  their  spiritual  acquisi- 
tions.    I  seemed  to  trace  this  unhappy  compliance 


vSV.  Gregory.  i6t 


to  a  fond  but  recreant  hope  of  averting  the  utter 
ruin  of  all  religion  under  the  assaults  of  the  northern 
barbarians,  whose  advancing  tribes  threatened  to  be 
even  fiercer  and  more  exterminating  than  those  who 
had  come  before  them.  The  Huns,  it  was  feared, 
would  be  more  terrible  than  the  Groths ;  the  Avars 
and  the  Lombards  loomed  in  the  distance,  not  less 
terrible  than  the  Huns.  Meanwhile  the  great  Leo, 
as  the  founder  of  the  Roman  Papacy,  had  exercised 
the  talents  of  a  profound  statesman,  in  ordering  and 
training  the  Church  as  a  spiritual  militia  for  the 
defence  of  social  order.  He  had  created  a  new 
Roman  people,  with  a  sense  of  brotherhood  and 
mutual  sympathy  akin  to  the  ancient  patriotism ; 
by  collecting  the  Church  into  his  own  hands  he  had 
consolidated  its  powers  of  resistance,  and  imbued  it 
with  a  certain  pride  and  confidence  in  itself  and  in 
its  leader,  which  constituted  it  already  a  strong  ma- 
terial force  for  the  government  of  the  world  around 
it.  While  the  Church  of  the  fifth  century,  in  mj- 
view,  grievously  betrayed  its  trust  in  one  direction,  I 
do  not  the  less  clearly  see  how  much  it  improved  the 
talent  committed  to  its  use  in  another. 

It  was  the  work  of  Providence ;  and  the  designs 
of  the  great  Governor  of  the  Church,  condescending 

M 


1 62  S^.  Gregory. 


to  human  infirmity  in  its  common  admixture  of 
good  with  evil,  seem  to  admit  of  being  reverentially 
traced  in  proceeding,  as  I  would  now  invite  you  to 
proceed,  further. 

I  have  spoken  broadly  of  the  age  of  Leo  as  the 
fifth  century,  for  convenience'  sake  ;  but  it  will  be 
well  to  remind  you  that  the  actual  work  and  direct 
influence  of  the  great  Pontiff  are  confined  properly 
to  the  middle  period  of  that  century  only.  In  451 
he  repulsed  Attila,  but  in  458  Eome  was  actually 
taken  and  sacked  by  the  Vandals  under  Grenseric, 
whom  Leo  could  only  soothe  and  propitiate.  Leo 
himself  died  in  461  ;  and  Eome  was  a  third  time 
taken,  by  the  German  Eicimer,  ten  years  later. 
With  the  fall  of  Augustulus  and  the  establishment 
of  a  barbarian  kingdom  by  Odoacer  in  476,  the 
Eoman  Empire  in  the  West  was  finally  dissolved ; 
the  throne,  which  had  been  at  least  nominally  re- 
served for  an  Emperor  of  Eoman  blood,  was  now 
for  the  first  time  occupied  by  a  barbarian  and  a 
stranger  under  the  alien  title  of  a  hing-^  the  con- 
stitution of  civil  society  was  surrendered  bodily  to 
the  northern  conquerors,  barbarians  themselves  or 
at  best  the  children  of  barbarians.  Pagans  themselves 
or  the  children  of  Pagans,  who  had  acquired  little 


S^.  Gregory.  16 


more  than  the  outward  varnish  of  southern  culture, 
and  of  the  religion  which  now  represented  it.  We 
may  regard  the  old  classical  Paganism  as,  to  the 
outward  eye,  almost  utterly  extinguished,  while  we 
bear  in  mind  that  the  spirit  of  the  old  traditions  had 
become  to  a  great  extent  merged  in  the  popular 
Christianity,  and  actually  assimilated  to  it. 

For  myself,  I  cannot  but  think  that  vital  Chris- 
tianity, spiritual  Christianity,  the  sense  of  sin  and 
of  the  appointed  means  of  recovery  from  sin,  had 
become  cold  and  numb,  all  but  dead,  at  this  critical 
period  throughout  the  Church.  We  can  only  speak 
of  the  Church  as  we  read  of  it  in  the  mass ;  Grod 
knows  who  are  His  own,  and  He  sees,  no  doubt,  at 
all  times  the  many  or  the  few  who  are  believers  in 
heart  and  soul,  however  little  they  may  make  them- 
selves visible  to  the  world  at  large.  There  was  in- 
deed one  spark  of  common  life  in  the  Church  which 
showed  itself  conspicuously  enough  even  at  this  un- 
happy period,  and  no  doubt  worked  its  appointed 
way  in  the  destined  development  of  the  Faith.  The 
fifth  century  was  eminently  active  in  the  convening 
of  ecclesiastical  Synods  for  the  definition  of  doctrine. 
During  its  course  many  dogmatic  points  of  interest 
and  importance  were  finally  determined  by  the  com- 

M   2 


164  S/.  Gregory. 

mon  voice  of  Christendom.  The  age  of  the  great 
Trinitarian  controversy  was  fitly  succeeded  by  the 
age  of  the  Monophysite  and  the  Monothelite.  The 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  Divine  substance  in  the 
Father  and  the  Son  was  completed  by  the  judgments 
which  affirmed  the  unity  of  the  Divine  nature  and 
the  unity  of  the  Divine  will.  These  and  other 
questions  had  doubtless  demanded  a  final  solution, 
to  bring  Christians  to  a  common  understanding  in 
regard  to  them.  To  the  fifth  century  we  owe  the 
determination  of  these  points  ;  and  we  acknowledge 
with  thankfulness  that  the  fifth  century,  with  all 
its  shortcomings,  did  retain  the  spark  of  life  which 
has  imparted  a  substantial  power  to  its  dogmatic 
decisions.  We  may  regret  indeed  that  this  spark  of  life 
was  also  manifested  in  its  repression  of  such  practical 
reformers  as  an  Aerius,  a  Jovinian,  a  Vigilantius 
may  probably  have  been,  and  in  the  honour  lavished 
upon  its  own  impetuous  and  overbearing  champions. 
We  may  bear  not  without  some  impatience  the  signs 
of  ecclesiastical  vigour  which  we  recognise  in  the 
silence  imposed  upon  Vigilantius,  and  the  canoni- 
zation of  his  opponent  Jerome. 

But  if  the  Church  might  seem  throughout  the 
fifth  century  to  lie  almost  dormant  under  the  bonds 


SL  Gregory.  165 


of  its  spiritual  winter,  the  outburst  of  a  new  spring- 
tide of  active  and  fertile  growth  was  being  prepared 
for  it  in  silence.  The  germ  of  this  renovated  vigour 
was  planted  in  the  Monastic  and  Cenobitic  systems, 
which  took  such  deep  root  in  the  fourth  and  were 
not  wholly  unknown  in  the  third  century.  You  will 
distinguish  between  the  monastic  or  recluse  life  of 
the  anchorite  or  hermit — who  fled  from  the  world 
to  devote  himself  in  entire  seclusion  to  communion 
with  Grod  and  Him  only — and  the  cenobitic,  the 
conventual  or  common  life  of  a  number  of  individuals 
living  together  indeed,  but  separate  from  the  outer 
world.  We  can  easily  understand  and  appreciate 
the  motives  which  first  drove  men  of  warm  and 
tender  feelings  to  renounce  the  society  of  the  harsh, 
the  selfish,  the  brutish,  who  in  an  age  of  rude  cor- 
ruption surrounded  and  harassed  them.  The  Church 
was  compassed  in  on  every  side  by  external  perils 
from  the  violence  of  man ;  she  was  distressed  and 
her  action  everywhere  impeded  by  the  perils  en- 
gendered by  sin  everywhere  abounding.  It  was  an 
age  well  fitted  to  breed  enthusiasts  and  visionaries, 
and  it  did  breed  them  on  every  side,  not  less  among 
the  Pagans  than  the  Christians.  Julian  was  not  less 
a  fanatic  than  Jerome.     Reverse  the  position  of  the 


1 66  S^.  Gi^egory. 


two  men,  both  great  men  in  their  way,  and  '  the  same 
adust  complexion '  would  have  made  a  hermit  of 
the  Emperor,  a  tyrant — perhaps  a  blasphemer — 
of  the  Saint.  The  priests  and  mystagogues  of  Isis 
and  Mithras  were  visionaries  essentially  of  the  same 
type  as  a  Saint  Anthony  and  a  Symeon  of  the  Pillar. 
The  vulgar  marvels  of  our  modern  spiritualism  and 
clairvoyance,  as  it  is  called,  are  simply  a  repro- 
duction of  the  pretensions  of  the  heathen  wonder- 
workers, and  can  be  paralleled  riddle  for  riddle  by 
them.^  The  precipitation  with  which  the  Christians 
of  the  same  age — and,  alas  !  alas !  Augustine  among 
the  rest — accepted  every  tale  of  miracle  and  vision 
that  was  palmed  upon  them,  shows  how  widely  spread 
was  the  credulity  of  the  age,  how  the  perils  and  trials 

'  '  Magicians  and  wizards,  chiefly  natives  of  Egypt  .... 
pretended  to  expel  demons  from  the  possessed,  to  blow  diseases 
away,  to  summon  the  souls  of  heroes,  and  make  tables  appear 
spread  with  sumptuous  repasts,  and  figures  of  animals  move  as 
animated  ....  Magician  philosophers  had  their  mysteries, 
into  which  their  pujDils  were  initiated  step  by  step,  till  they 
reached  the  contemplation  of  the  gods  manifesting  themselves 
in  a  variety  of  forms,  chiefly  human,  but  not  unfrequently  too 
in  formless  liglit  only.  Probably  this  did  not  mean  a  mere 
scenic  phantasmagoria,  but  an  artificial  state  akin  to  magnetic 
clairvoyance,  in  which  people  found  themselves  surrounded 
with  light,  like  that  of  the  Byzantine  navel- inspectors  of  the 
fourth  century.' — DoUinger  {Gentile  and  JeiVj  ii.  214),  from 
Proclus,  Celsus,  and  other  ancient  authorities. 


St  Gregory.  167 


to  which  it  was  subjected  had  overwrought  its  brain 
and  weakened  its  nerves.^ 

'  St.  Augustine,  in  his  belief  in  dreams  and  visions  (^Civ.  Dei^ 
xxii,  8),  reminds  us  curiously  of  Wesley.  The  fallacies  of  human 
credulity  at  this  period  are  exposed  by  DoUinger  {G.  and  J. 
ii.  199  foil.)  :— 

'  We  are  acquainted  with  a  few  of  the  numerous  expedients 
most  frequently  employed  in  making  gods,  demons,  and  the 
dead,  who  had  to  be  conjured  up,  appear.  The  believer  was  bid 
to  look  into  a  stone  basin  filled  with  water,  which  had  a  glass 
bottom,  and  stood  over  an  opening  in  the  floor.  The  imaginary 
god  was  found  below,  or  a  figure  was  traced  on  the  wall,  which 
was  smeared  over  with  a  combustible  composition.  During  the 
evocatio  a  lamp  was  imperceptibly  brought  close  to  the  wall,  so 
as  to  set  fire  to  the  material,  and  a  fiery  demon  exhibited  to  the 
astonished  believers.  The  apparition  of  Hecate  was  specially 
efficacious.  Believers  were  told  to  throw  themselves  prostrate 
at  the  first  sight  of  fire.  The  goddess  of  the  crossways  and 
roads,  the  Gorgo  or  Mormo  wandering  among  the  graves  at 
night,  was  then  invoked  in  verse,  after  which  a  heron  or  vulture 
was  let  loose,  with  lighted  tow  attached  to  the  feet,  the  flame 
of  which,  frightening  the  bird,  it  flew  wildly  about  the  room. 
....  Similar  artifices  were  employed  to  make  the  moon  and 
stars  appear  on  the  ceiling  of  a  room,  and  to  produce  the  effects 
of  an  earthquake.  To  make  an  inscription  show  itself  on  the 
liver  of  a  victim,  the  haruspex  wrote  the  words  previously  with 
sympathetic  ink  on  the  palm  of  his  hand,  which  he  kept  pressed 
on  the  liver  long  enough  to  leave  the  impression.  So  the  Neo- 
Platonists  contrived  to  cheat  the  Emperor  Julian,  and  Maximus 
caused  him  to  see  an  apparition  of  fire  in  the  temple  of  Hecate. 
....  The  '  Pneumatica  '  of  Heron  abound  in  this  kind  of  lore. 
Here  you  have  instructions  how  to  build  a  temple  so  that,  on 
the  kindling  of  the  fire  on  the  altar,  the  doors  open  spontaneously 
....  by  lighting  a  fire  on  an  altar  to  contrive  that  two  figures 
at  the  side  should  pour  a  libation  upon  it,' &c.  &;c.     To  these 


J  68  S^.  Gregory. 


The  delusions  of  the  Anchorites  are  notorious, 
and  are  generally  acknowledged  by  candid  writers 
even  of  the  Medieval  or  Eomish  schools.  Grreat 
excuse  may  be  alleged  for  the  devotees  who  at  such 
a  season  of  general  misery — with  such  imminent 
prospects  of  worse  evils  of  all  kinds,  with  such  fer- 
vent aspirations  for  their  Lord's  second  coming,  and 
assurance  that  He  could  not  long  delay  it — aban- 
doned the  world  and  all  its  duties  to  secure,  as  they 
imagined,  their  own  souls'  safety.  But  it  was  a 
selfish  policy  at  best ;  and  I  hardly  suppose  that  any 
one,  on  calmly  reviewing  it,  can  think  that  Christian 
society  gained  anything  by  the  countenance  it  lent 
to  it.  The  best  that  can  be  said  for  it  is,  that  it  left 
here  and  there  an  example  of  fortitude  and  self- 
control,  to  show  mankind  the  real  strength  of  human 
nature.  It  might  encourage  wiser  men  to  a  wiser 
application  of  the  deep  resources  of  love  and  zeal  with 
which  Gfod  has  endowed  His  creatures,  if  they  have 
but  the  sense  to  employ  them  rightly.  But  the  case 
of  the  Cenobites,  of  the   devotees  who  retired  from 


and  kindred  artifices,  adds  the  writer  (with  a  glance  at  our 
animal  magnetism  or  so-called  spiritualism),  there  is  a  great 
deal  that  is  similar  even  among  the  phenomena  of  more  modern 
times. 


S^.  Gregory.  169 


life  in  public  to  seek  Grod  in  a  private  community 
— cultivating  some  sympathy  with  their  fellows, 
cherishing  principles  of  discipline  and  obedience, 
occupying  themselves  with  labour  both  of  mind  and 
body,  studying,  digging,  writing,  preaching — the 
case  of  the  Cenobites  was  very  different.  We  may 
deplore  their  precipitation  in  quitting  the  world,  and 
the  common  ties  of  society  which  good  men  might 
do  so  much  to  leaven ;  we  may  discredit  the  super- 
stitious mortifications  which  they  imposed  on  them- 
selves ;  we  may  think  that  the  rules  of  celibacy,  of 
poverty,  even  of  mendicancy,  which  they  enforced, 
were  more  adapted  to  foster  self-exaltation  than  self- 
abasement;  wa  may  trace  in  the  repeated  failure  and 
decline  of  the  efforts  so  repeatedly  made  to  reform 
and  reinforce  their  system,  the  inevitable  law  by 
which  an  unnatural  mode  of  existence  is  doomed  to 
decay  and  perish,  and  never  lives  out  half  its  years ; 
but  we  may  acknowledge  that  the  common  or  con- 
ventual life  became  a  powerful  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  Divine  wisdom  for  working  out  in  its  due 
season  a  happy  transformation  in  the  position  of  the 
Church. 

The  effect  of  the  conventual  system  was  to  im- 
plant in  the  minds   of  Churchmen  a  new  and  signi- 


1  yo  SL  Gregory. 


ficant  sense  of  their  duty,  as  the  apostles  or  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Lord  Jesus.  We  have  marked  the 
fifth  century  as  a  period  of  despair  and  languor 
throughout  the  Christian  community,  when  the  idea 
of  advancing  the  bounds  of  Christianity,  once  so  rife 
and  effectual,  was  tacitly  abandoned.  For  the  supine- 
ness  in  this  particular  of  the  Church  under  Leo  some 
pleas  may,  no  doubt,  be  urged.  First  of  these 
perhaps  was  the  imminent  danger  to  the  Faith  at 
Eome  itself,  if  the  barbarians,  who  had  already 
entered  within  the  bounds  of  the  Empire  and  hovered 
over  Italy,  should  be  allowed  to  become  its  masters 
without  being  first  caught  in  the  net  of  the  Grospel. 
While  this  portentous  issue  was  yet  undecided,  the 
preachers  of  Christianity,  it  may  be  said,  could  not 
afford  to  go  further  afield  in  search  of  more  remote 
barbarians  to  convert.  Leo  himself,  it  may  be 
added,  was  too  fully  occupied  with  the  consolidation 
of  Church  authority  according  to  his  own  engrossing 
ideas,  to  extend  his  views  and  multiply  his  anxieties 
elsewhere.  But  there  is  assuredly  something  singular 
in  his  apparent  blindness  to  the  future  prospects 
of  the  Church  of  Christ,  which  lives,  according  to 
Christ's  own  words,  by  a  process  of  constant  exten- 
sion.    Leo  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  '  Calling  of  all 


S^.  Gregory.  171 


Nations.'  He  was  fully  impressed  with  the  truth  of 
the  divine  declaration,  that  '  Grod  willed  that  all 
men  should  be  saved.'  He  assures  us  that  the 
Church,  in  performance  of  her  bounden  duty,  '  prays 
to  Grod  everywhere  not  only  for  the  Saints  and  the 
regenerate  in  Christ,  but  also  for  all  unbelievers  and 
enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ,  for  all  worshippers  of 
idols,  for  Jews,  heretics,  and  schismatics.'  It  prays 
that  they  may  be  converted  to  God,  accept  the  Faith, 
and  become  delivered  from  the  darkness  of  ignorance. 
The  Church  in  his  view  is  bound  to  pray  that  the 
nations  may  come  to  Christ,  but  he  says  not  a  word 
of  the  Church  going  to  them,  calling  to  them,  and 
bringing  them.  As  the  nations  come  to  Eome,  he 
seems  to  say,  so  let  them  come  of  their  own  will  to 
Grod.  He  prays  that  they  may  do  so  ;  but  as  Eome 
has  ceased  to  go  forth  and  subdue  the  nations  to  her 
sway,  so  it  seems  not  to  occur  to  him  that  the  Church 
should  go  forth,  and  conquer  the  children  of  unbelief 
in  their  own  lands.  As  the  Partbians,  the  Modes, 
and  the  Elamites  '  flowed  together '  to  receive  the 
saving  truth  from  the  Apostles,  so  he  would  invite 
the  Groths,  and  Grermans,  and  Scythians  to  accept 
the  faith  from  Rome,  and  let  it  bear  fruit  in  their 
own   homes   hereafter  as   Grod  pleases.     His    whole 


172  St  Gregory. 


treatise  on  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles  is  devoted  to 
explaining  and  elaborating   the   doctrine  of  Grace 
and   Freewill,    and     showing    how   the    scheme   of 
Eedemption  which  he  has  founded  upon  the  teach- 
ing of  Augustine  may  be  reconciled  with  the  will  of 
God  that  all  men  should   be   saved.     But  on  the 
overthrow  of  the  Western  Empire,  and  the  demon- 
stration,  rendered   manifest   to   all,  that   with  the 
complete  triumph  of  the  new  world  of  secular  po- 
lities a  new  spiritual  development,  a  new  phase  of 
Divine  guidance,  was  opening,  the  conscience  of  the 
believers  was  aroused   to  a  sense  of  the  sinfulness  of 
their  cowardly  inactivity.     *  Go  ye  into  all  nations, 
and  baptize  them,'  had  been  the  last  words  of  their 
blessed  Master.     How  long  had  they  cowered  behind 
the  outworks  of  a  narrow   civilization,  and  refused 
even   to  stretch   forth    a  hand  to   the  unnumbered 
multitudes  beyond  it !     How  long  had  they  shrunk 
in  fear  and  horror  from  contact  with  the  mass  of 
their  fellow-creatures,  all  gifted  with  immortal  souls, 
all  subjects  of  the  same  law  of  love  which  Christ  had 
imposed  on  His  disciples  as  His  greatest  command- 
ment!    Thereupon  a  new    spirit   seemed   suddenly 
to  awaken  among  them — the  missionary  spirit ;  a 
new  spirit,  we  may  at  this  period  justly  call  it,  for 


6V.  Gregory.  1 7; 


the  original  impulse  which  had  urged  the  first 
Christians  over  land  and  sea  in  quest  of  proselytes, 
had  been  checked  or  paralysed  among  the  believers 
for  two  or  more  centuries.  It  is  to  this  new  or 
revived  missionary  spirit  which  distinguished  the 
sixth  century,  of  which  I  would  place  Pope  Grregory 
the  First,  or  the  Great,  as  the  central  figure,  that  I 
desire  now  to  introduce  you.  Kemember  that  the 
Empire,  which  had  represented  the  unity  of  man- 
kind, had  become  disintegrated  and  broken  into  frag- 
ments. Men  were  no  longer  Eomans,  but  Groths  and 
Sueves,  Burgundians  and  Vandals,  and  beyond  them 
Huns,  Avars,  Franks,  and  Lombards,  some  with  a 
slight  tincture  of  Christian  teaching,  but  most  with 
none ;  but  were  they  not  all  God's  children,  all  alike 
bound  in  sin  ?  Had  not  Christ  died  for  all  ?  Let 
but  the  Gospel  be  proclaimed  to  all,  and  leave 
the  issue  in  God's  hands !  Such  was  the  contrast 
between  the  age  of  Leo  and  the  age  of  Gregory  ! 
between  the  era  of  despair  in  the  Church,  of  narrow 
views  and  faint  aspirations,  and  the  era  of  hopeful- 
ness, activity,  and  vigom- !  It  was  as  when  the 
prison  doors  were  opened  and  Peter  came  forth 
into  the  streets. 

Few  men  have  done  so  great  a  work  in  the  world 


174  '^^-  G'^^gory. 


as  Benedict  of  Nursia,  the  founder  of  the  convent  of 
mount  Cassino,  the  founder  of  the  Benedictine  order 
of  monks,  which  from  the  first  took  the  largest 
share  in  breeding  apostles  for  the  G-entiles,  and 
fostering  the  spirit  of  apostolic  activity.  But  the 
impulse  of  which  I  have  spoken  may  be  traced  more 
particularly  to  the  career  of  Severinus,  the  apostle, 
as  he  is  called,  of  Bavaria.  The  origin  and  birthplace 
of  this  holy  preacher,  the  first  of  the  medieval  mis- 
sionaries, is  not  precisely  known.  He  is  supposed  to 
have  come  from  the  East,  and  we  are  allowed  to 
believe  that  he  had  been  an  inmate  of  some  convent 
in  Asia,  where  his  mind  had  first  opened  to  the 
claims  of  the  distant  heathens  to  his  devout  solicitude. 
With  a  bold  and  vigorous  effort  he  threw  aside  the 
contemplative  life  to  which  he  had  originally  sur- 
rendered himself.  His  love  for  others  prevailed 
over  his  love  for  himself;  perhaps,  if  his  heart  was 
still  more  keenly  touched,  he  might  feel  that 
Christian  love  is  twice  blest ;  it  blesseth  him  that 
gives  as  well  as  him  that  takes  of  it.  So  it  was  that 
Severinus  engaged  himself  throughout  a  mission  of 
thirty  years  in  the  work  of  converting  the  barbarians 
on  the  Danube,  the  Save,  and  the  Iser ;  barbarians 
most  of  whom  had  never  heard  the  name  of  Christ 


Si.  Gregory.  175 


of  whom  a  few  only  had  imbibed  at  best  some  corrupt 
and  imperfect  notions  of  His  message  of  Love  and 
Peace ;  barbarians  as  rude  and  restless  as  any  that 
had  hitherto  scared  mankind  from  their  propriety, 
but  on  whose  simple  hearts  he  exercised  a  soothing- 
influence,  attested  by  its  permanent  effects  as  well 
as  by  the  recorded  incidents  of  his  story.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  bringing  many  of  their  chiefs  to  baptism  ; 
he  effected  the  liberation  of  multitudes  of  captives,  the 
preservation  of  some  cities ;  he  attached  to  himself 
a  body  of  zealous  assistants,  and  planted  them  in 
divers  localities.  It  is  affirmed  of  Severinus  that 
he  actually  founded  several  Episcopal  sees  which 
remained  as  centres  of  Christian  enlightenment  for 
ages.  The  chronicles  indeed  from  which  we  learn  of 
his  doings  teem  unfortunately  with  the  relation  of 
supposititious  miracles,  those  parasites  of  the  ancient 
missionary  church;  but  for  this  wretched  under- 
growth the  holy  man  is  in  nowise  accountable,  and 
few  men,  as  it  would  seem,  could  have  better 
deserved,  without  any  aid  from  them,  the  title 
he  has  received  of  Saint  or  Holy,  and  Apostolus  or 
Missionary. 

But    the    end   of   the    fifth    century    witnessed 
another  act  of  vigour  on  the  part  of  the  Church  on  a 


176  S^,  G^^egory 


much  larger  scale,  and  pregnant  with  far  more 
critical  consequences.  No  incident  perhaps  is 
more  important  in  the  development  of  the  Roman 
See  and  the  Eomish  Church,  with  all  its  mingled 
tissue  of  good  and  evil  stretching  through  so  many 
centuries,  than  that  of  the  conversion  of  Clovis  and 
the  Franks,  the  conquerors  of  ancient  Graul,  the 
founders  of  modern  France.  The  mission  of  Severi- 
nus  had  been  done  comparatively  in  a  corner  ;  it  was 
the  obscure  work  of  an  obscure  individual;  it  had 
not  sprung  from  the  common  impulse  of  the  Church, 
nor  at  the  motion  of  a  pope,  a  bishop,  or  a  council. 
It  was  a  private  experiment  on  the  power  of  the 
Gospel,  and  the  receptivity  of  the  natural  conscience 
of  man.  The  same  and  no  more  might  be  said  of 
other  individual  efforts  on  a  similar  scale  which  are 
recorded  about  the  same  time.  But  the  example 
once  set  was  sure  to  be  followed  and  pushed  to 
greater  results.  The  conversion  of  Clovis  and  the 
Franks  is,  I  suppose,  the  earliest  instance  of  a 
Christian  mission  carried  out  on  a  national  scale  by 
the  common  action  of  the  Church  represented  by  the 
Pope  and  See  of  Rome.  It  becomes  accordingly  a 
great  historical  event,  deserving  the  earnest  con- 
sideration not  of  Churchmen  only,  but  of  all  political 


SL  Gregory.  177 


enquirers.  The  facts  which  solicit  our  attention  in 
regard  to  it  lie,  however,  within  a  small  compass  ; 
and  we  may  be  satisfied  on  the  present  occasion  with 
a  rapid  glance  at  them,  before  we  pass  on  to  the 
story  of  yet  another  conversion,  more  interesting  to 
ourselves  as  Englishmen,  and  not  less  so  perhaps  to 
all  who  are  interested  in  the  history  of  human 
progress. 

Clovis  and  the  Franks  who  burst  the  barrier  of 
the  Khine  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  were 
simply  heathens,  nominally  addicted  to  the  worship 
of  the  Teutonic  deities  Thor  and  Woden,  but  in 
reality  enslaved  by  the  still  grosser  superstition  of 
omens,  sortilege,  and  magic.  They  were  rude  as  the 
rudest  of  the  northern  hordes  which  had  followed  in 
succession,  breaking  wave  after  wave  upon  the  feeble 
dykes  opposed  to  them  by  the  southern  civilization  : 
which  had  one  after  another  overflowed  or  beaten 
down  these  outer  bulwarks,  but  which,  when  once 
established  within  them,  had  adopted  a  more  or  less 
settled  polity.  They  had  received  some  amount  of 
material  culture,  and  had  made  generally  an  outward 
profession  of  the  spiritual  belief  of  the  conquered 
people.  So  it  had  been  with  the  Visigoths,  with 
the  Vandals,  with  the  Burgundians,  all  terrible  names 

N 


178  SL  G^'egory. 


in  their  day  as  destroyers  of  the  churches  and  slayers 
of  the  Saints,  but  all  in  turn  humanized  in  some 
degree  by  contact  with  a  higher  order  of  society. 
'  Ecclesia  capta  ferum  victorem  cepit.'  The  Church 
might  boast  that  she  had  conquered  her  conquerors. 
Sanguine  men  might  hope  for  their  further  advance 
in  humanity  and  religion.  Yet  the  Church,  though 
more  hopeful  than  of  yore,  though  warming  with  a 
spirit  more  generous  than  that  of  i\i^  arrogant  Leo, 
and  assuming  courage  to  face  the  unexplored  future 
of  mankind,  might  still  have  shrunk  from  the  dread 
encounter  with  the  untamed  barbarians  who  were 
now  filling  the  Graulish  provinces  with  terror.  It 
was  ordained  that  a  special  way  should  be  opened 
for  her.  The  first  step,  the  leading  step  which  so 
often  decides  an  eventful  crisis,  was  the  impulse, — 
casual  it  might  seem  to  the  bystanders,  providen- 
tial, as  we  who  trace  it  by  the  light  of  after  his- 
tory must  reverently  allow — the  providential  impulse 
which  induced  Clotilda,  the  wife  of  Clovis,  to  extort 
her  husband's  permission  for  the  baptism  of  their 
first-born.  Fruitful  as  the  influence  of  women  has 
been  in  promoting  the  acceptance  of  the  Faith  by 
unbelieving  husbands  and  sons,  in  later  times,  this  is 
perhaps  the  first  recorded  instance,  certainly  the  first 


SL  Gregory.  179 


conspicuous  and  important  one,  in  which  they  that 
obey  not  the  Word  have  been  won  by  the  conversation 
of  wives  or  mothers.  Clotilda  was  the  daughter  of  the 
king  of  the  Burgundians,  and  the  Frankish  con- 
queror had  taken  her  in  marriage  as  a  matter  of 
policy ;  for  the  Burgundians,  themselves  a  Teutonic 
people,  had  settled  as  conquerors  before  him  in  the 
south  of  Gaul,  and  were  in  a  position  to  do  him 
good  service  as  allies  in  the  complete  subjugation 
of  the  north.  The  Burgundians,  along  with  the 
other  Teutonic  invaders,  had  already  accepted  the 
name  at  least  of  Christians ;  but  while  the  Visigoths, 
the  Vandals,  and  others  had  generally  adopted  the 
Arian  interpretation,  the  Burgundians  seem  alone 
to  have  fallen  under  the  guidance  of  orthodox 
teachers,  and  had  obtained  the  favour  and  confidence 
more  especially  of  the  Church  of  Eome.  An 
orthodox  princess  had  now  ascended  the  throne  of 
the  most  formidable  of  the  barbarian  invaders. 
Popes,  bishops,  monks,  and  laymen  generally  might 
unite  their  prayers  for  the  glorious  results  which  the 
Head  of  the  Church  in  heaven  should  bring  to  pass 
in  consequence.  The  presumptive  heir  of  Clovis 
was  baptized  by  the  hands  of  an  orthodox  prelate, 
the  friend,  the  ally,  the  subservient  minister  of  the- 
N  2 


i8o  SL  Gregory. 


head  of  the  Church  upon  earth.  This  was  a  greater 
triumph  for  the  Church  than  the  baptism  even  of 
Constantino,  whose  orthodoxy  had  been  impeached 
from  the  beginning.  Alas!  the  infant  child  of  so 
many  hopes  died.  Behold,  a  greater  triumph  still ! 
Clovis,  ferocious  to  his  foes,  was  sensitive,  tender, 
loving,  to  his  wife.  A  second  son  was  born,  and  a 
second  time  Clovis,  Pagan  though  he  was,  yielded  to 
a  woman's  entreaties,  and  allowed  the  Christian  rite 
to  be  administered.  This  second  child  grew  up, 
to  the  great  public  advancement,  no  doubt,  of  the 
Catholic  Faith,  though  with  little  credit  to  its 
practical  teaching;  so  mingled  has  ever  been  the 
yarn  of  good  and  evil  in  the  operations  of  Grod's 
Church  upon  earth,  so  chequered  the  inter-working 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  with  the  carnal  affections  of 
sinful  men. 

But  Clovis  was  still  a  Pagan.  His  destined  con- 
version followed  suddenly  and  unexpectedly.  It 
was  in  the  crisis  of  the  great  fight  of  Tolbiac  that 
the  uxorious  husband  remembered  his  wife,  her  love, 
her  faith,  and  yearned  for  more  spiritual  communion 
with  her.  'Jesus  Christ,'  he  cried,  '  Thou  whom  my 
Clotilda  declares  to  be  the  Son  of  the  living  Grod,  a 
present  help  to  them  that  are  in  need,  the  Griver  of 


S^.  Gregory.  i8i 


victory  to  them  that  believe  in  Thee,  I  implore  Thy 
gracious  aid !  I  have  called  on  my  own  gods,  but 
they  are  far  away,  and  do  not  hear  me  ;  therefore,  I 
believe  not  that  such  gods  have  power  to  help  me.' 
Such  is  the  record  of  our  monkish  historians. 
Victory  followed  ;  Clovis  fulfilled  his  vows  ;  and  not 
himself  alone,  but  many  thousands  of  his  trusty 
followers  pressed  forward  to  accept  initiation  into 
the  Christian  Faith.  Eemigius  or  St.  Eemi,  Bishop 
of  Kheims,  undertook  to  impart  to  him  the  necessary 
instruction.  Seeking  him  one  evening,  when  he 
had  retired  with  his  queen  from  the  banquet  of  the 
day,  he  concluded  his  admonitions  with  the  promise 
that  the  Christian  posterity  of  that  blessed  pair 
should  continue  to  reign  gloriously,  should  inherit 
the  throne  of  the  Eoman  Empire,  should  exalt  to  the 
utmost  the  dignity  of  Holy  Church.  The  kings  of 
France,  with  the  eighteen  Clovis  or  Louis-es  who, 
are  numbered  among  them,  have  striven  through 
so  many  ages  to  give  effect  to  the  auspicious  promise ; 
the  prophecy  has  helped  perhaps  to  the  furtherance 
of  its  own  fulfilment.  Kings  of  France  and  Emperors 
of  the  French  have  still  proudly  called  themselves 
the  Eldest  Sons  of  the  Church,  and  devoted  them- 
selves even  to  the  political  interest  of  the  Eoman 


i82  S^.  Gregory. 


See,  which  they  identify  exclusively  therewith.  For 
the  sake  of  that  Church,  and  at  its  bidding,  they 
have  allowed  themselves  to  do  many  acts  of  unchris- 
tian wickedness.  They  have  stifled  the  Eeforma- 
tion,  they  have  massacred  the  Reformers ;  but  in  the 
Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  their  charter  of 
toleration,  their  own  sin  has  found  them  out.  From 
that  generation  to  the  present  the  Church  of  which 
they  make  themselves  the  champions  has  lost,  more 
conspicuously  than  any  other  Church  of  the  Roman 
obedience,  all  command  over  the  human  intellect.  I 
do  not  think  that  she  has  produced,  since  the  time 
of  Fenelon,  whom  she  proscribed,  a  single  divine 
who  has  attained  the  second,  or  even  the  third 
rate  in  the  long  and  varied  list  of  Christian  spiritual 
teachers,  and  the  claims  she  still  advances  to  in- 
telligent consideration,  questionable  as  they  were 
even  in  the  days  of  a  Bossuet  and  a  Massillon,  have 
become  absurd  in  the  eyes  of  the  existing  genera- 
tion. 

Another  story  is  that  the  teaching  of  Clovis  was 
interrupted  by  his  exclaiming  with  his  hand  on  his 
sword,  when  he  heard  the  piteous  accounts  of  our 
Lord's  sufferings,  '  Would  to  God  I  had  been  there 
with  my  warlike  Franks  to  defend  Him.'     And  here 


SL  Gregory.  183 


we  may  recognise  perhaps  a  savour  of  the  martial 
ardour  which  has  so  conspicuously  animated  the 
Grallican  Church,  its  champions  and  defenders, 
throughout  succeeding  ages.  Such  was  the  spirit 
which  placed  France  at  the  head  of  the  Crusades, 
the  spirit  which  nerved  the  arms  of  Grodfrey  and 
Lusignan,  and  more  than  all  of  the  sainted,  and  I 
would  willingly  say,  the  saintly  Louis ;  the  spirit  which 
created  the  orders  of  Knights  Templars  and  Knights 
Hospitallers,  the  two  military  orders  which  the 
French  Church  has  contributed  to  the  rolls  of  monkery ; 
the  spirit  which  has  broken  out  even  in  these  in- 
auspicious days,  which  has  more  than  once  almost 
set  Europe  in  a  blaze  in  pretended  defence  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre,  and  has  sent  the  brave  general 
Lamoriciere  to  incur  his  first  and  last  defeat  in  the 
worthless  cause  of  the  Pope's  temporal  sovereignty. 
Such  was  the  long  career  of  the  French  Church, 
which  was  inaugurated  on  the  solemn  occasion  when 
Clovis  and  his  Franks  received  Holy  Baptism  at  the 
font  of  the  Cathedral  of  Kheims.  We  must  put 
away  from  us  indeed  the  image  of  the  great  medie- 
val edifice,  which  now  raises  its  imposing  fapade, 
to  admit  the  kings  of  France,  when  kings  she  has,  to 
their  solemn  consecration ;   yet  we  may  believe  that. 


184  S/.  Gregory. 


even  in  the  fifth  century,  the  mother  Church  of  Graul 
was  eminent  in  size  and  beauty  above  most  others  ; 
and  we  may  picture  to  ourselves  a  scene  of  sublime 
magnificence  when,  as  we  read,  the  pavement  before 
its  portals  was  shaded  by  many  folds  of  embroidered 
drapery  suspended  from  surrounding  roofs  and 
balconies  ;  when  the  area  of  the  building  was  decked 
with  a  long  row  of  fonts  for  the  reception  of  so 
many  expected  converts  ;  when  the  floor  was  sprinkled 
with  perfumed  waters ;  when  wax- tapers  of  odorous 
scent  sparkled — in  spite  of  Jerome's  protest  a  century 
before — in  the  light  of  day  on  every  side,  and  the 
charmed  imagination  of  the  barbarians  so  tricked 
their  senses,  that  they  deemed  themselves  rapt  in  the 
sweets  of  paradise !  The  chief  of  a  tribe  of  stolid 
ruffians  descended  into  the  baptismal  basin ;  three 
thousand  of  his  companions  plunged  boldly  with  him. 
'  And  now  ' — to  quote  an  ardent  French  historian — 
'  when  they  arose  from  the  waters  as  Christian 
disciples,  one  might  have  seen  fourteen  centuries 
of  empire  rising  with  them ; — the  whole  array  of 
chivalry,  the  long  series  of  the  Crusades,  the  deep 
philosophy  of  the  schools ; — in  one  word,  all  the 
heroism,  all  the  liberty,  all  the  learning  of  the  later 
ages !     A  great  nation  was  commencing  its  career  ; 


S^.  Gregory.  185 


that  nation  was  the  French.'  ^  Pretty  strong 
language  is  that ;  but  let  us  pardon,  on  such  an  oc- 
casion, the  exaggeration  of  an  enthusiastic  patriot,  and 
an  enthusiastic  Catholic,  a  man  blind  perhaps  of  both 
eyes !  Let  me  conclude,  however,  with  one  word  in 
favour  of  the  good  Eemigius — for  such  I  believe  he 
was.  It  was  not  he  that  gave  the  impulse  to  a  faith 
so  mingled  with  blood  and  iron  as  that  of  the  French 
Church  in  after  ages.  His  teaching  had  tended  only 
to  contrition  and  humility.  '  Take  the  yoke  upon 
thee,'  he  had  exclaimed,  '  thou  conquered  savage ! 
Kiss  the  cross  thou  hast  erewhile  burnt,  burn  the 
idols  thou  hast  hitherto  adored ! ' 

Such  language  might  well  betoken  a  message  of 
Peace  and  Groodwill  towards  men.  It  would  be  sad 
to  turn  from  it  to  the  recital  of  the  deeds  of  fraud 
and  violence  by  which  the  history  of  the  converted 
Franks  is  so  shockingly  disfigured.  The  descendants 
of  Clovis  fell  indeed,  in  one  sense,  upon  evil  times, 
for  their  crimes  were  tracked  by  a  pack  of  chroniclers 
and  minute  historians,  and  very  black  they  do  cer- 
tainly look  in  the  light — more  than  commonly  fierce 
— which  beats  upon  the  throne  of  the  Merovingian 
monarchy.  The  Chilperics  and  Clotaires  can  hardly 
'  Ozanam,  Etudes  Germaniques,  ii.  54. 


S^.  Gregory. 


have  been  better  than  the  nameless  barbarians  from 
whom  they  derived  their  origin.  Let  us  hope  at  least 
that  they  were  not  worse — more  superstitious,  more 
self-righteous ;  that  they  were  not  misled  to  trust  in 
the  vain  promises  of  smiling  priests  and  a  corrupt 
theology.  Meanwhile,  the  Church  of  Eome  took  to 
herself  all  the  honour,  and  reaped  much  of  the 
advantage,  of  this  signal  national  conversion.  She 
had  encouraged  and  assisted  the  pious  Clotilda  in 
winning  her  husband  to  the  faith ;  the  prize  thus 
gained  she  did  not  carelessly  forego.  She  baptized 
him,  as  we  have  seen,  with  all  the  pomp  and  cere- 
mony she  had  lately  learnt  to  assume.  She  sur- 
rounded him  with  a  troop  of  ecclesiastics,  a  devoted 
band  who  had  all  sworn  direct  allegiance  to  her,  and 
humbly  accepted  their  functions  from  her  hands. 
For  his  special  edification  these  flattering  courtiers 
applied  the  unction  of  the  Jewish  kings  of  old  to 
the  consecration  of  the  Christian  monarchy ;  a  cere- 
mony which  might  be  more  readily  accepted  by  the 
wondering  neophyte,  as  it  reminded  him  of  the  oil 
or  butter  with  which  his  Teutonic  ancestor  had  been 
wont  to  plaster  his  dishevelled  locks — 

Infundens  acido  comam  biityro. 
In  the  cathedral  of  Kheims  the  Church  inaugurated 


S^.  Gregory.  187 


her  first  secular  conquest,  placing  the  State  in  sub- 
ordination to  herself,  and  plainly  preparing  the  way 
for  the  not  far  distant  era  when  kings  should  wear 
their  crowns  by  sufferance  of  the  Pope,  and  subjects 
look  to  the  Holy  See  for  release  from  their  temporal 
obedience.  All  this  and  more  was  typified  in  the 
unction  of  Clovis  and  Charlemagne  and  the  long  list 
of  their  successors ;  and  the  title  with  which  they 
were  honoured  of  Most  Christian  has  hardly,  we 
may  think,  compensated  for  the  subservience  it  has 
entailed  upon  them,  nor  for  the  base  compliances  it 
has  so  often  extorted  from  them. 

Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  there  is  a  brighter 
side  to  the  picture.  We  may  feel  at  least  some 
assurance  that  the  simple  truths  of  the  Gospel  really 
impressed  themselves  more  or  less  deeply  on  the 
minds  of  the  general  population ;  that  the  Christian 
lessons  of  penitence,  resignation,  and  charity  bore 
genuine  fruit  among  the  classes  from  which  so  many 
went  forth  to  govern  the  Church  at  home  as  priests 
and  bishops,  to  evangelize  the  heathen  abroad  as 
missionaries  and  martyrs.  Even  before  the  conver- 
sion of  the  Franks,  the  indignant  exclamation  had 
been  heard — it  had  been  heard  from  the  mouth  of 
an  Augustine,  an  Orosius,  and  a  Salvian — that  the 


S^.  Gregory. 


believing  Eomans  of  the  latter  ages  were  more  lost 
and  reprobate  than  many  of  the  misbelievers  around 
them.  '  You  think,'  says  Salvian  to  his  people, 
'  that  you  are  better  than  the  barbarians ;  they  are 
heretics,  and  you  are  orthodox.  Yes,  better  are  we 
in  our  faith  ;  but  in  our  lives — I  say  it  with  tears — we 
are  much  worse.  Treacherous  are  the  Groths,  but  they 
are  shamefaced ;  sensual  are  the  Alans,  but  they 
are  faithful;  the  Franks  are  false  of  tongue,  but 
they  are  liberal  and  hospitable ; '  and  so  on  with 
others.  '  And  yet,'  he  continues,  '  can  we  wonder 
that  Grod  has  given  over  our  provinces  to  the  bar- 
barians, while  their  moderation  serves  to  purify  the 
earth  which  still  reeks  with  the  debauches  of  the 
Eomans  ? '  ^  Whatever  be  the  prejudice  under  which 
these  Christian  satirists  speak  of  their  fellow-believers, 
we  may  readily  suppose  that  the  fresh  blood  of  the 
new-comers  teemed  with  elements  of  a  higher  faith 
and  a  purer  morality.  We  may  imagine  that  the 
Frankish  converts  were  not  unfitted  to  imbibe  the 
seeds  of  Christian  cultivation  from  the  lips  of  the 
priests  and  monks  who  now  undertook  to  instruct 
them.  The  whole  soil  of  PVance  became  rapidly 
overshadowed  witli  cathedrals,  churches,  and  monas- 
^  Salvian,  Be  Guhernativne  Dcif  lib.  iv. 


6V.  Gregory.  189 


teries.  France  now  constituted  a  province  of  Holy 
Church,  a  dependency  of  the  Holy  See ;  it  was  occu- 
pied by  an  army  of  devout  preachers  and  teachers  ; 
the  missions  poured  into  it  by  the  Popes  of  the  age 
which  followed  gave  it  at  least  the  outward  semblance 
of  a  kingdom  of  Christ,  such  as  had  hardly  been  seen 
even  under  the  government  of  the  Emperor  either 
of  the  East  or  of  the  West.  The  success  of  the 
Grospel  missions  of  the  ensuing  century,  the  great 
practical  work  of  the  Church  of  Eome,  cannot 
with  candour  be  disguised  or  disparaged. 

Much,  no  doubt,  of  this  success  must  in  fairness 
be  attributed  to  the  organization  and  discipline 
ui)der  which  the  clergy,  even  of  a  distant  province 
such  as  France,  were  moved  almost  as  puppets  by 
the  guiding  hand  of  the  chief  Bishop  of  the  Western 
Church  enthroned  in  the  Eternal  City.  Still  more 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  veneration  with  which  this 
eminent  prelate  had  inspired  his  subordinate  clergy, 
and  through  them  the  great  body  of  an  admiring 
and  imaginative  laity.  But  the  Chm-ch,  it  must  be 
remembered,  of  this  later  age  had  renounced  none  of 
the  corruptions  of  its  predecessors,  but  had  rather 
enhanced  them.  The  spirit  of  Paganism  she  had 
imbibed   had   sunk   like   blood-poisoning    into   her 


I  go  S^.  Gi^e^ory. 


veins ;  to  a  vicious  generation  even  her  vices  recom- 
mended her.  How  much  of  her  success  must  be 
imputed  to  the  array  of  visions,  miracles,  and  lying- 
wonders  with  which  she  surrounded  herself,  partly, 
no  doubt,  imagined,  but  too  often  deliberately  in- 
vented and  falsified?  The  reputed  history  of  the 
ancient  missions  is  in  its  details  a  tissue  of  super- 
stitious narratives.  We  would  not  willingly  suppose 
that  the  brave  and  pious  men  who  issued  from  the 
cathedrals  and  convents  of  France  to  convert  the 
heathens  beyond  the  Ehine,  such  as  Saints  Amandus 
and  Aloysius,  Lupus,  Nicetius,  Arnulphus,  and  others 
whose  wanderings  and  preachings  may  still  be  traced, 
— we  would  not  willingly  suppose  that  these  Christian 
heroes  actually  fabricated  the  marvellous  stories 
which  illustrate  the  career  of  their  class  in  the 
pages  of  the  monkish  chroniclers.  Often,  at  least,  it 
was  not  till  one  or  more  generations  after  their  death 
that  they  became  thus  famed  for  a  power  with  heaven 
to  which  they  made  no  pretensions  themselves,  and 
of  which  they  were  wholly  unconscious.  Nevertheless, 
it  was  upon  such  fables  that  their  repute  has  ulti- 
mately rested ;  their  real  virtues  and  graces,  however 
conspicuous,  would  have  thrown  no  such  nimbus  of 
<rlory  around  them  as  the  childish  hagiographers  have 


S^.  Gregory.  191 


claimed  and  the  Eoman  Church  has  deliberately  sanc- 
tioned. The  missions  into  Germany,  with  the  foun- 
dation of  the  great  monastic  institutions  such  as 
Fulda,  St.  Gall,  and  Corbey,  which  upheld  the 
Church  among  the  Pagans  for  so  many  centuries, 
present  to  us  from  first  to  last  a  mixtuie  of  truth 
and  falsehood,  of  good  and  evil,  such  as  runs,  I  fear, 
more  or  less  through  the  whole  texture  of  poor  human 
nature. 

Many  touching  and  romantic  stories  might  be 
told,  much  sentiment  and  poetical  imagery  might  be 
lavished,  in  reference  to  the  spiritual  triumphs  of 
these  Frankish  missionaries,  and  still  more  perhaps 
of  the  Irish  missionaries,  beyond  the  Ehine,  who  have 
made  this  period  so  illustrious  in  the  history  of  the 
Western  Church.  Are  they  not  written  with  every 
advantage  of  rhetoric  and  word-painting  in  the  books 
of  Montalembert  on  the  Monks  of  the  West  ? — a 
record,  I  would  say,  of  illusions  against  which  any 
vigorous  and  manly  mind  needs  hardly  to  be 
guarded.  But  I  hasten  to  the  great  central  mission 
of  the  sixth  century,  which  makes  the  name  of  the 
first  Pope  Gregory,  surnamed  the  Great,  especially 
illustrious.  I  have  pointed  to  this  Pontiff  as  the 
representative  of  the  period  before  us,  and  mainly  so 


192  6"/.  Gregory. 


because  to  him  we  owe  the  famous  Mission  of 
Augustine  to  the  Saxons  in  England — to  us  the  most 
interesting,  if  not  actually  the  most  striking,  event 
of  ancient  Christian  history.  To  this  most  important 
and  fruitful  crisis  of  the  Church  I  would  now  call  for 
a  short  time  your  special  attention. 

The  Mission  of  Augustine  was  perhaps  more 
distinctly  than  any  other  the  direct  work  of  the 
Eoman  See.  It  was  distinctly  the  work  of  Grregory, 
as  the  Head  of  the  Eoman  See.  To  his  direct 
initiative  the  picturesque  and  possibly  the  true 
legend,  so  famous  in  his  history,  especially  points. 
You  all  know  it,  but  you  will  allow  me  to  vary  the 
broader  lines  of  my  narrative  by  repeating  the  par- 
ticulars. 

About  the  year  580,  in  the  pontificate  of  Pelagius, 
G-regory  occupied  the  rank  of  a  deacon  among  the 
Eoman  clergy.  He  was  early  noted  for  his  zeal  and 
piety ;  coming  into  large  possessions,  as  an  offshoot 
of  an  ancient  and  noble  family,  he  had  expended  his 
wealth  in  the  foundation  of  no  less  than  seven 
monasteries  and  had  become  himself  tlie  abbot  of  one 
of  them,  St.  Andrew's,  at  Eome.  Devoted  as  he  was 
from  the  first  to  all  the  good  works  to  which  the 
religious  profession  might  best  apply  itself,  his  atten- 


S^.  Gregory.  193 


tion  was  more  particularly  turned  to  the  cause  of 
Christian  missions  by  casually  remarking  a  troop  of 
young  slaves  exhibited  for  sale  in  the  Eoman  market. 
Struck  with  the  beauty  or  fresh  complexion  of  these 
strangers,  he  asked  whether  they  were  Christians  or 
Pagans.     They  were  Pagans,  it  was  replied.     How 
sad,  he  exclaimed,  that  such  fair  countenances  should 
lie   under   the    power    of  demons.     'Whence   came 
they  ? ' — '  From    Anglia.' — '  Truly   they  are  Angels. 
A\Tiat  is  the  name  of  their    country  ?  ' — '  Deira.' — 
'  Truly  they  are  subject  to  the  wrath  of  God  :  ira  Dei. 
And  their  king?' — 'Is  named  ^Ua.' — 'Let  them  learn 
to  sing  Allelujah.'     Britain  had  lately  fallen  under 
the  sway  of  the  heathen  Angles.     Throughout  the 
eastern  section    of  the  island,  the  faith   of  Christ, 
which  had  been  established  there  from  early  times, 
had  been,  it  seems,  utterly  extirpated.     The  British 
church  of  Lucius  and  Albanus  still  lingered,  but  was 
chiefly  confined  within  the  ruder  districts  of  Cornwall, 
Wales,  and  Cumbria.     The  reported  destruction   of 
the   people  with    all   their   churches,  and  all    their 
culture,  begun  by  the  Picts  q,nd  Scots,  and  carried 
on  by   the  Angles    and  their  kindred  Saxons,  had 
made  a  profound  impression  upon  Christendom.  The 
'  Groans  of  the  Britons '  had  terrified  all  mankind. 


194  '^^-  Gregory. 


and  discouraged  even  the  brave  missionaries  of  Italy 
and  Graul.  The  ferocity  of  the  reckless  pirates, 
the  followers  of  Hengist  and  Horsa,  had  removed  our 
distant  shores  even  farther  from  the  sympathies  of 
southern  Europe.  None  offered  to  go  and  preach  to 
the  terrible  idolaters.  Grregory  determined  to  make 
the  sacrifice  himself.  He  prevailed  on  the  Pope  to 
sanction  his  enterprise  ;  but  the  people  of  Rome, 
with  whom  he  was  a  favourite,  interposed,  and  he 
was  constrained  reluctantly  to  forego  the  peril  and 
the  blessing.  But  the  sight  he  had  witnessed  in  the 
market-place  still  retained  its  impression  upon  him. 
He  kept  the  fair-haired  Angles  ever  in  view ;  and 
when,  in  the  year  592,  he  was  himself  elevated  to 
the  popedom,  he  resolved  to  send  a  mission,  and  fling 
upon  the  obscure  shores  of  Britain  the  full  beams  of 
the  sun  of  Christendom,  as  they  then  seemed  to 
shine  so  conspicuously  at  Rome. 

Augustine  was  the  preacher  chosen  from  among 
the  inmates  of  one  of  Grregory's  monasteries,  for  the 
arduous  task  thus  imposed  upon  him.  He  was  to 
be  accompanied  by  a  select  band  of  twelve  monks, 
together  with  a  certain  number  of  attendants.  On 
his  passage  through  Gaul  he  was  recommended  to 
the  charitable  offices  of   the  Archbishop  of  Aries, 


S^.  Gregory.  195 


whose  ecclesiastical  position  was  the  most  eminent 
in  that  country,  and  whose  personal  character  and 
experience  were  probably  in  high  repute.  The 
missionaries  required  indeed  all  the  encourage- 
ment which  the  chief-pastor  of  the  Church  could 
give  them.  They  were  seized,  we  are  told,  with 
a  sudden  panic  ;  they  paused  and  hesitated  on  their 
way,  and  agreed  at  one  moment  to  abandon  the 
undertaking  if  their  master  at  Eome  would  consent 
to  it.  They  even  sent  Augustine  back  to  lay  their 
entreaties  before  the  holy  Pontiff;  but  Grregory, 
without  even  admitting  their  spokesman  to  his 
presence,  addressed  them  with  a  vigorous  epistle ;  and 
his  exhortations  thus  reinforced  could  only  be  re- 
garded as  commands.  Augustine  was  promptly 
designated  to  the  government  of  the  first  See  that 
should  be  established  among  the  Saxons. 

Thus  incited  and  fortified  in  spirit,  the  little  band 
reached  the  English  shore.  They  landed  on  the  isle 
of  Thanet,  the  usual  place  of  debarkation  from  Bou- 
logne or  Witsand.  Ethelbert,  king  of  Kent,  had 
extended  his  dominion  over  the  eastern  coast  of  our 
island  as  far  as  the  Humber,  and  was  at  the  time  the 
greatest  of  the  Saxon  potentates.  His  wife,  named 
Bertha,  was  a  princess  of  the  Frankish  line.  She 
o  2 


196  kS/.  Gregory. 


was  a  Christian,  and  had  obtained  permission  to 
maintain  a  chapel  for  the  administration  of  Christian 
rites  in  the  outskirts  of  the  royal  residence  at  Canter- 
bury. The  missionaries  had  provided  themselves 
with  Frankish  interpreters,  and  communication  be- 
tween these  and  Bertha's  college  of  priests  was  easy. 
Ethelbert  was  soon  induced  to  meet  the  visitors  in 
the  island  on  which  they  had  landed.  He  com- 
manded them  to  approach  him  in  the  open  air, 
for  the  pagan  Saxons  imagined  that  magical  arts 
could  be  more  readily  practised  under  a  roof,  which 
they  most  dreaded  on  such  occasions.  Forward  they 
marched  in  solemn  procession,  bearing  a  silver  cross 
before  them,  with  the  image  of  the  Saviour  painted 
on  a  board,  singing  a  litany,  and  offering  prayers  for 
themselves  and  for  the  heathens  for  whose  welfare 
they  had  come.  Ethelbert  bespoke  them  fair ;  for 
himself,  he  said,  he  was  content  with  the  usages  of 
his  ancestors,  but  as  they  had  journeyed  so  far  and 
braved  such  perils,  he  could  not  but  suppose  that 
they  were  earnest  and  devoted  to  the  cause  they  had 
in  hand,  and  he  would  not  refuse  them  the  exercise 
of  their  religion,  and  the  opportunity  of  preaching 
it.  He  allowed  them  to  settle  themselves  in  his 
capital ;  the  little  church  of  St.  Martin,  just  outside 


SL  Gregory.  ig'j 


the  city  on  the  road  from  the  coast,  is  said  to  mark 
the  spot  on  which  Queen  Bertha  performed  her 
religious  duties,  and  there  it  was  that  the  new- 
comers were  at  once  piously  received.  In  this  place, 
says  our  venerable  Bede,  '  they  first  began  to  meet, 
to  sing,  to  pray,  to  say  mass,  to  preach,  and  to  bap- 
tize, till  the  King,  having  become  a  convert  to  the 
Faith,  allowed  them  to  build  or  to  repair  churches  in 
all  places/ 

'  To  build  or  repair  churches,'  says  Bede.  Are  we 
to  infer  from  this  that  there  were  still  many  churches 
of  the  ancient  British  Christians  existing,  though  in 
decay  and  ruin  ?  It  would  seem  so ;  and  we  may 
surely  read  in  these  words  an  indication  that  the 
original  conversion  of  the  Britons  had  been  extensive, 
if  not  universal.  Perhaps  we  may  infer  further  that 
the  old  Christian  tradition  had  not  entirely  perished 
among  the  remnant  of  the  Britons,  who  undoubtedly 
still  survived  even  throughout  the  country.  The 
King  having  thus  quickly  adopted  the  Faith  presented 
to  him,  the  people  as  quickly  followed  his  example. 
The  zeal,  the  devotion,  the  spiritual  promises  of  the 
missionary  preachers  produced  a  rapid  effect,  no  less 
than  the  many  marvellous  works  which  their  hearers 
imputed   to  them,  and  which,  it  would  seem,  they 


198  kS"/.  Gregory. 


were  not  slow  to  arrogate  to  themselves.  When  we 
find  Pope  Grregory  himself  writing  to  Augustine,  and 
urging  him,  in  the  midst  of  his  successes,  not  to 
glory  overmuch  in  the  miracles  which  have  attended 
on  his  career,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  Apostle,  as 
he  was  called,  of  England  did  actually  advance  such 
pretensions  to  supernatural  powers.  He  was  swimming 
indeed  with  the  tide.  The  Saxons,  king  and  people, 
seem  to  have  been  all  in  his  favour  ;  and  he  may 
have  been  himself  deluded  by  a  triumph  so  easy  and 
so  suddenly  complete.  Having  thus  made  good  his 
footing  on  the  soil  of  the  heathens,  Augustine  re- 
turned to  France  to  receive  consecration  as  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  at  the  hands  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Aries.  He  proceeded  to  appoint  Mellitus  to  the 
See  he  created  for  London,  and  Justus  to  that  of 
Eochester,  and  thus  were  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
Christian  Hierarchy  which  the  grace  of  God  has 
preserved  to  us  even  to  this  day. 

There  is  something  very  remarkable  in  the  faci- 
lity with  which  the  fierce  idolaters,  whose  name  had 
struck  such  terror  into  the  Christian  nations  far  and 
near,  yielded  to  the  persuasions  of  this  band  of  peace- 
ful evangelists.  They  yielded,  no  doubt,  in  some 
degree    to    an    extravagant   apprehension   of  their 


St.  Gregory.  199 


supernatural  powers ;  partly  also,  as  we  would 
readily  believe,  to  the  example  of  their  holy  lives, 
and  the  earnestness  of  their  preaching;  still  more, 
perhaps,  to  the  authority  they  asserted  as  instru- 
ments of  their  far-distant  sovereign  in  Italy,  the  in- 
heritor, in  barbarian  eyes,  of  the  Imperial  power  of 
the  Caesars,  and  of  the  order  and  discipline  they 
derived  from  him.  Nowhere  did  the  Eoman  priests 
put  forward  the  claim  of  their  local  prelate  more 
prominently  than  in  England;  nowhere  did  their 
disciples  submit  themselves  more  implicitly  to  the 
foreign  yoke  which  was  thus  thrust  upon  them. 
Thus  it  was  that  this  country  became  what  it  long 
continued  to  be,  the  most  devoted  handmaid  of  the 
Church  of  Kome.  No  people  in  fact  has  proved  it- 
self more  sensitive,  more  sympathetic  with  spiritual 
emotions  than  our  Saxon  ancestors  ;  no  hagiology  is 
more  replete  with  refined  religious  sentiment  than 
ours,  as  witnessed  by  the  long  list  of  female  devotees 
who  have  contributed  to  its  array  of  reputed  Saints 
and  Confessors.  The  story  of  the  conversion  of  the 
Northumbrians  strikingly  illustrates  the  imagin- 
ative or  poetical  side  of  our  national  character,  and 
familiar  as  it  is  to  most  of  us,  may  deserve  to  be  once 
more   repeated.     It  has  been  well  told  by  Southey 


200  SL  Gregory. 


and  many  others  in  prose,  by  Wordsworth  in 
verse ;  but  none,  perhaps,  has  improved  upon  the 
simple  words  of  Bede,  from  whom  we  originally 
derive  it. 

The  missionary  Paulinus  was  preaching  to  Edwin, 
king  of  the  heathens  beyond  the  Humber.     Edwin 
had  been  already  plied  by  the  solicitations  of  his 
wife,  a  converted  princess  of  Kent ;   he  had  been 
solicited  by  letters  from  the  Pope  himself;  he  had 
been  assailed  by  signs  and  visions  which  he  believed 
to  be  specially  vouchsafed  him  ;  and  he  was  already 
more  than  half-persuaded  to  become  himself  a  Chris- 
tian.    But  a  Saxon  king  was  in  many  ways  depen- 
dent upon  his  council  of  nobles  ;  he  was  but  the  first 
among  a  number  of  chiefs  and  warriors.     In  this 
case,  as  in  others  of  which  we  read  in  the  history 
of  the  Teutonic  missions,  it  was  deemed  expedient 
to  debate  in  a  public  assembly  the   question  of  a 
national   conversion.     '  Accordingly,'    says   our   his- 
torian, '  Edwin,  holding  a  council  of  his  wise  men, 
enquired  of  them,  one  by  one,  what  they  thought  of 
the  new  doctrine  and  worship.     To  which  the  chief 
of  his  priests,  Coifi,  straightway  replied,  "  0  king, 
consider  what  this  thing  is  wliich  is  now  preached 
unto  us ;  for  I  verily  declare  to  you  that  the  faith 


kSV.  Gregory,  201 


we  have  hitherto  professed  has,  so  far  as  I  can  learn, 
no  virtue  in  it  at  all.  For  none  of  your  people  has 
set  himself  more  diligently  to  serve  our  gods  than  I 
have;  and  yet  there  are  many  who  receive  greater 
favours  from  you,  and  are  preferred  before  me.  But 
if  these  gods  were  good  for  anything,  they  would 
rather  set  me  forward,  who  have  been  ever  so  obser- 
vant of  them." '  Now  this,  it  must  be  allowed,  was 
rather  graceless  in  a  prelate  who  occupied  by  Divine 
permission  the  position  of  an  Archbishop  of  York  at 
the  court  of  the  ancient  Northumbria ;  but  so  it  was 
that  the  archpriest  Coifi  was  induced,  by  whatever 
considerations,  to  advise  that  the  new  doctrine  should 
receive  a  respectful  hearing.  Thereupon  uprose 
another  of  the  king's  chief  men,  approving  this 
advice,  and  enforcing  it  with  a  picturesque  illustra- 
tion :  '  The  present  life,  0  king,'  he  said,  '  seems  to 
me,  compared  with  that  time  which  is  unknown  to 
us,  like  to  the  swift  flight  of  a  sparrow  through  the 
room  wherein  you  sit  by  the  fire  at  supper  in  the 
winter-tide,  with  your  chiefs  and  ministers  about 
you,  while  the  storms  of  wind  and  rain  prevail 
abroad.  The  sparrow,  I  say,  flying  in  at  one  door 
and  immediately  out  at  another,  whilst  he  is  within, 
is  safe  from  the  wintry   storm;  but   after  a  short 


202  SL  Gregory. 


space  of  fair  weather  he  quickly  vanishes  out  of  our 
sight  into  the  cold  and  darkness  without.  Such  is 
the  life  of  man,  which  is  but  for  a  moment ;  of  what 
went  before,  and  what  shall  follow  it,  we  have  no 
knowledge.  If,  then,  this  new  preaching  can  tell 
us  anything  certain  about  it,  let  us  by  all  means 
hearken  unto  it,  and  presently  adopt  it.'  By  this 
address,  perhaps  by  both  these  addresses,  the  hearts 
of  the  councillors  were  touched ;  and  after  some 
further  parley — for  the  great  resolve  was  not  em- 
braced without  due  consideration — it  was  determined 
to  accept  the  Christian  faith,  to  overthrow  the  na- 
tional idols,  in  which  work  Coifi  came  vigorously 
forward,  and  to  allow  Paulinus  to  instal  himself, 
with  a  number  of  Christian  priests  around  him,  in 
an  episcopal  see  at  York.  There  is  a  certain  glow 
of  spiritual  warmth  about  the  conversion  of  the 
Saxons  in  England,  which  we  desiderate  in  that  of 
the  Franks  and  other  heathens  on  the  continent ; 
and  the  history  of  our  Christian  career,  I  would  add, 
has,  with  all  its  deficiencies,  accorded  mainly  with 
this  happy  beginning. 

But  this  sketch  of  so  interesting  a  passage  in  our 
national  history  must  not  close  without  reference  to 
the  one  great  blot  by  which  it  was  at  the  outset 


S^.  Gregory.  203 


disfigured.  We  have  marked  more  than  once  the 
zeal  of  the  missionaries.  We  have  allowed  liberal 
excuse  for  their  too  common  error  in  taking  the 
Church  of  Eome,  the  Church  of  the  so-called  Holy 
See,  for  the  Church  of  Christ  universal.  We  are 
willing  to  believe  that  their  course  was  ordered  for 
the  best,  and  that  Divine  providence,  looking  far 
into  the  future,  suffered  the  error  of  the  day,  for  the 
sake  of  the  lasting  advantage  to  the  great  cause, 
from  the  outward  unity  thus  impressed  upon  the 
claims  of  Christendom  in  the  face  of  her  jealous 
adversaries.  Yet  we  cannot  remark  without  a  sigh 
how  manifestly  some  of  the  chief  agents  in  this 
conversion,  and  notably  Pope  Grregory  himself,  looked 
more  keenly  to  the  promotion  of  ecclesiastical  con- 
formity than  to  the  propagation  of  the  genuine  Grospel. 
Keenly  did  he  scent  out  the  subtle  distinctions  of  the 
Arian  and  semi-Arian  tenets,  and  devote  himself  to 
reducing  the  Ostrogoths  and  the  Lombards  to  the 
strict  orthodoxy  of  the  Eoman  See.  But  it  was  not 
only  in  matters  of  belief  that  he  was  thus  sternly  criti- 
cal. He  was  not  less  severe  in  requiring  submission,  in 
matters  of  mere  technical  usage,  to  the  discipline  of 
his  own  Church.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his 
zeal  in  the  conversion  of  the  Saxon  heathens  was 


204  ^^'  Gregory. 


quickened  by  anxiety  to  compel  the  remnant  of  the 
ancient  British  Christians  to  conform,  even  in  so 
trivial  a  matter  as  the  time  of  observing  Easter,  to 
the  rule  of.  Rome  and  of  all  Western  Christendom. 
The  claims  of  the  Holy  See  had  advanced  since  the 
time  of  Leo,  and  Pope  Gregory  did  not  scruple  to 
brand  as  heresy  and  spiritual  rebellion  any  deviation 
even  in  matters  ceremonial  from  the  lines  marked 
out  by  himself  and  his  predecessors.  Any  difference, 
however  slight,  was  in  itself  a  token  of  independence, 
and  no  independence  should  any  longer  be  tolerated. 
The  policy  of  the  Roman  See  under  Gregory  no  more 
suffered  the  existence  of  a  provincial  or  a  national 
Church,  than  the  policy  of  the  Empire  under  Augustus 
or  Trajan  could  endure  the  existence  of  a  provincial 
or  a  national  commonwealth.  God's  providence  has 
sanctioned  both  the  one  and  the  other  for  special 
times  and  purposes ;  but  both  the  one  and  the 
other  are  essentially  instruments  of  mere  human 
policy,  to  be  broken  and  cast  away  when  their  time 
has  passed  and  their  appointed  purpose  has  been 
effected. 

The  destruction  of  the  ancient  British  Church 
which  followed  is  a  dark  page  in  the  history  of  the 
Saxon  conversion.     The  British  natives  had  fled  in 


S/.  Gregory.  205 


great  numbers  into  Wales,  on  the  occupation  of  their 
soil  by  the  invaders ;  they  had  carried  with  them 
their  religious  organization ;  their  bishops  seem  to 
have  settled  beyond  the  Severn,  and  abandoned  all 
the  East  to  the  heathens.  Perhaps  we  must  infer 
from  this  that  their  Church  had  lost  much  of  its 
active  life.  Nevertheless,  there  were  many  bishops 
and  a  multitude  of  monks  still  counted  in  its  ranks. 
The  bishops  met  Augustine  in  conference  at  a  spot 
known  afterwards  by  an  oak,  called  by  his  name,  on 
the  borders  of  their  territory.  They,  met  him  to 
discuss  the  questions  of  ritual,  and  they  were  van- 
quished in  the  debate  by  a  pretended  miracle,  against 
which,  of  course,  argument  was  powerless.  Again 
they  met  him  before  the  great  British  monastery  of 
Bangor,  in  Flintshire.  A  hermit  had  directed  them 
to  submit  to  Augustine,  if  he  were  a  genuine  man  of 
Grod;  and  this  they  should  ascertain  by  observing 
whether  he  rose  with  true  Christian  humility  to 
receive  them.  But  Augustine  stiffly  kept  his  seat ; 
it  was  resolved  among  them  that  he  was  a  proud 
and  graceless  impostor.  This  time  he  produced  no 
miracle,  and  to  his  arguments  they  smartly  replied, 
or  refused  to  listen.  The  conference  broke  up; 
Augustine   departed  with   the   threat  that  if  they 


2o6  S^.  Gregory. 


would  not  have  peace  with  their  brethren,  they 
should  have  war  with  their  enemies ;  and  surely 
enougli  the  Saxons  soon  after  attacked  them,  and 
first  destroyed  twelve  hundred  monks  who  prayed 
for  their  safety,  and  then  the  army  which  fought  to 
defend  it.  Thus,  says  the  prior  or  venerable  Bede, 
was  fulfilled  the  prediction  of  the  holy  bishop.  Let 
us  hope  that  he  did  not  aid  himself  in  its  accom- 
plishment. The  British  Church  reeled  under  the 
blow,  nor  does  it  seem  to  have  again  made  head  in 
Wales  or  elsewhere  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
foreign  see.  Perhaps  we  may  trace  the  issue  of  this 
unhappy  conflict  in  the  excess  of  Komish  corruption 
to  which  Ireland,  and  the  excess  of  Protestant  laxity 
to  which  Wales,  I  fear,  has  been  in  these  latter  ages 
abandoned.  Yet  we  may  remind  ourselves  that  from 
the  descendants  of  these  same  Saxons,  whom  the 
Roman  monks  converted,  the  blow  was  struck  by 
which  the  pretensions  of  Popery  have  been  repressed 
among  us ;  that  it  was  by  our  Saxon  kinsmen  abroad, 
the  blood  of  whose  fathers  was  shed  for  the  Roman 
See  by  Charlemagne,  that  spiritual  freedom  was 
conquered  on  the  continent ;  the  conversion  of  the 
Saxons  at  home  and  abroad,  once  the  guilty  glory 
of  Rome,  has  issued  in  her  deepest  mortification.     It 


S^.  Gregory.  207 


is  from  England  and  from  northern  Germany  that 
the  Nemesis  of  Faith  has  fallen  upon  the  wicked 
power  which  has  been  so  often  drunk  with  the  blood 
of  its  opponents. 

The  great  movement  of  revived  life  and  vigour, 
of  revived  hope  and  ambition,  which  appears  in  the 
missions  of  the  sixth  century,  continued  to  advance 
through  the  ages  which  followed,  but  Upon  this  later 
history  I  do  not  now  intrude.  The  age  of  Columba, 
of  Grail  and  Boniface,  rife  with  the  conversion  of 
central  Grermany,  has  many  points  of  special  interest. 
The  forcible  reduction  to  the  Faith  of  the  Saxons  by 
Charlemagne  presents  an  awful  picture  of  another 
kind.  Sweden,  Denmark,  Iceland,  and  the  North- 
men have  each  their  special  chapter  in  the  history  of 
Christian  missions.  The  Roman  Church  of  the  sixth 
century,  and  particularly  Pope  Grregory,  who  ruled  it 
during  the  latter  years  of  that  period,  deserve  the 
credit  of  commencing,  of  urging,  and  of  crowning 
the  great  work.  But  the  work  of  conversion,  though 
it  has  from  time  to  time  relaxed  or  declined,  has 
never  wholly  ceased  since  that  ancient  date.  Christen- 
dom, though  amidst  her  perils  and  her  dissensions 
she  has  often  fallen  far  short  of  the  great  ideal  which 
Grregory  presented  to  her,  has  never  altogether  failed 


2o8  S^.  Gregory. 


in  her  bounden  duty  to  go  and  teach  all  nations, 
baptizing  them,  and  teaching  them  to  observe  all 
things  whatsoever  her  Lord  has  commanded  her. 
And  in  so  doing  her  Lord  has  always  been  with  her, 
as  He  promised  her  He  would  be. 

Her  Lord  has  been  always  with  her !  What  more 
glorious  and  blessed  token  to  the  truth  and  efficacy 
of  the  Christian  dispensation  than  this,  if  indeed  it 
may  be  truly  asserted  of  it !  True  it  is,  that  the 
great  efforts  and  the  splendid  results  of  the  mission- 
ary spirit  of  Grregory  have  hardly  been  repeated  on 
the  same  scale  in  later  times.  The  opportunity  has 
perhaps  passed.  The  buoyancy  of  ripened  hope  and 
vigour  which  swayed  the  Church  from  the  sixth 
century  may  hardly  revive  perhaps  a  second  time. 
The  ardent  rage  to  avenge  the  triumphs  of  Mahomet 
in  the  East  by  equal  or  greater  conquests  in  the 
West,  to  call  into  existence  a  new  Christian  world  to 
redress  the  balance  of  the  old,  may  hardly  recur  in 
the  less  excited  times  that  have  succeeded.  The 
choicest  ground  has  been  for  the  most  part  occupied. 
The  soil  of  the  Teuton,  extending  over  one  half  of 
Europe,  the  most  fertile  seed-plot  of  intelligent 
faith,  has  become,  I  trust,  a  possession  of  the  Church 
for  ever  ;  but  it  has  left  no  other  such  fruitful  vine- 


SL  Gregory.  209 


yard  to  be  seized  and  fenced  and  planted.  The 
human  material  on  which  a  spiritual  and  truly 
Christian  culture  can  be  successfully  expended  has 
been,  as  some  may  think,  more  or  less  exhausted. 
Doubtless,  Providence  will  work  out  its  purpose  by 
means  beyond  our  scope  of  vision.  Providence  grows 
never  old,  nor  is  subject  to  the  despondency  which 
comes  with  advancing  years  to  men  and  the  genera- 
tions of  men.  But  few  of  us,  I  suppose,  can  see 
much  sign  of  a  general  and  national  conversion,  such 
as  those  we  have  been  reviewing,  among  the  teeming 
swarms  of  India,  or  China,  or  Central  Africa.  Yet 
we  too,  in  our  own  branch  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
have  been  long  engaged  in  the  work  of  Missions ;  we 
too  have,  year  by  year,  gathered  at  least  some 
wanderers  into  the  fold ;  our  sphere  of  operation  is 
widening  ;  to  us  the  horizon  is  extending ;  our  sober 
hopes  are  being  gradually  realized.  We  are  offering 
to  all  nations  the  blessing  of  the  Gospel,  to  see 
whether  they  will  accept  it  or  no. 

But  there  are  still  two  remarks  which  the  general 
tenor  of  the  history  before  us  leads  me  to  make  in 
conclusion.  The  first  is,  that  throughout  the  course 
of  our  missionary  efforts  we  have  always  honestly  ab- 
stained from  the  great  vice  of  the  medieval  missions; 

P 


2IO  SL  Gregory. 


we  have  never  laid  claim  to  the  exercise  of  super- 
natural powers.  We  are  thoroughly  convinced  that 
upon  such  a  claim  no  blessing  can  rest ;  and  I  believe 
I  may  safely  say  that  no  such  pretension  has  been 
advanced  in  behalf  of  any  of  our  great  preachers 
among  the  heathen  even  after  their  deaths ;  and 
Swartz,  Martyn,  Heber,  have  been  dead  more  than 
fifty  or  sixty  years.  There  are  few  perhaps  of  the 
human  inventions  of  the  Eomish  system  to  which 
some  of  our  eccentric  brethren  have  not  shown  some 
favour  in  our  time ;  but  not  one  of  them  has  ever 
claimed  for  our  Church  the  gift  of  miracles.  I  sup- 
pose every  one  has  felt  that  to  put  forth  such  pre- 
tensions would  stop  at  once  the  flow  of  missionary 
zeal  and  of  missionary  charity  among  us.  But  I 
would  further  remark  that,  while  we  renounce  the 
idea  of  a  visible  head  of  the  Church  Catholic  en- 
throned in  the  See  of  Eome  with  authority  to  direct 
and  control  all  its  movements,  we  are  fully  sensible 
of  the  advantage  to  the  missionary  among  the 
heathen  of  the  sanction  of  an  organized  Church, 
speaking  through  its  appointed  Ministers.  The 
Church  of  England  has  not  left  its  children  without 
such  a  sanction.  The  humblest  chaplain  at  our 
remotest  station  may  speak  as  one  having  authority 


St  G7^ego7y.  2 1  r 


derived  from  a  great  ecclesiastical  centre  ;  as  such 
he  may  feel  confidence  in  himself,  and  inspire  confi- 
dence in  his  hearers.  For  ourselves  indeed,  at  home 
the  presence  of  our  chief  pastors  so  near  at  hand 
may  be  sufficient  encouragement ;  but  the  labourers 
far  away,  our  brethren  who  are  sowing  and  tending 
the  Word  in  America,  in  our  own  Colonies,  in  the 
remote  confines  of  the  Pagan  world,  all  these  may 
well  require  an  assurance  that  the  Eeformed  branch 
of  the  Church  universal  to  which  we  belons:  has  its 
bishops  and  its  synods  scattered  throughout  the 
world,  and  that  the  authority  they  confer  extends 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  British  isles  or  the 
British  possessions.  The  recent  conferences  of  our 
various  national  and  provincial  Prelates  at  Lambeth 
seem  to  be  the  appointed  opening  of  a  great  histori- 
cal era  in  our  Church.  I  trust  that  in  another 
generation  it  will  be  found  that  their  united  action 
has  imparted  to  our  Anglican  Missions  in  every 
quarter  all  the  confidence,  all  the  vigour,  all  the 
compact  and  consistent  energy  which  were  first 
launched  from  the  hands  of  the  solitary  despot  of 
Eome. 

These   concluding  remarks  may  be  deemed    not 
inopportune   almost  on  the    eve  of   the  day  which 


6V.  Gregory 


is  assigned — the  Feast  of  St.  Andrew  on  Saturday 
next — for  Greneral  Intercession  for  the  conversion 
of  the  heathen,  and  the  progress  of  our  Church 
Missions. 

*^,*  These  Lectures  were  delivered  in  November 
1878,  the  last  on  the  27th  day  of  the  month,  the  30th 
being  the  day  appointed  for  Greneral  Intercession  for 
Christian  Missions. 


LONDON  :    PRINTED    BY 

SP0TTI8W00DE    AND    CO.,    NEW-STREET     SQUARK 

AND    PARLIAUBNT    8TREBT 


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BW1112.M56C.2 

Four  lectures  on  some  epochs  of  early 

IIMNIIlSlllS'?n.'.'^"'"'^^^-SP^^^  Library 


1    1012  00078  7863 


